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Salmis of Plovers

A stew of plover meat, bacon, ham, vegetables, and broth, finished with a liver and bacon sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Salmis of Plovers

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the plovers

  1. Pluck the plovers.

  2. Singe the plovers.

  3. Remove the gizzards and crops from the plovers.

  4. Truss the plovers.

  5. Cover the plovers with slices of fat bacon.

  6. Roast the plovers until done.

  7. Cut the roasted plovers into quarters.

  8. Remove bones and skins from the quarters.

  9. Place the quarters in a saucepan with legs underneath and fillets on top.

  10. Brush the plovers with a little glaze.

  11. Keep warm in a bain-marie.

Make the glaze and stock

  1. In another saucepan, combine bones, vegetables, ham, and broth.

  2. Reduce the mixture to a glaze.

  3. Add more broth.

  4. Boil the mixture.

  5. Add sweet herbs, whole spice, and white wine.

  6. Skim the mixture.

  7. Boil for an hour.

  8. Strain the mixture.

  9. Clarify with minced uncooked game-flesh.

Make the liver sauce and serve

  1. In a frying pan, cook the intestines of the plovers with chicken’s livers and bacon slices.

  2. Season the mixture with salt and pepper.

  3. Fry until done.

  4. Pound the mixture in a mortar.

  5. Sieve the mixture.

  6. Stir in a little glaze to form a sauce.

  7. Fry the crofitons of bread in butter.

  8. Cover the crofitons with the liver mixture.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  3. White wine + buttertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. White wine + chickentop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,904 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  5. Ham + chickentop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,497 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Plovers
Provide the main meat, whose flesh is roasted, quartered and served with the glaze.
Broth
Forms the liquid base that is reduced into a concentrated glaze and sauce.
Chicken’s livers
Give the liver mixture its rich, smooth body when pounded and sieved into the sauce.
Bacon
Adds fat and savoury flavour as it renders during cooking.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma to the stock as it simmers.

The step that matters

Clarify with minced uncooked game-flesh. Simmering the stock with minced raw meat lets the protein coagulate and trap cloudy particles, so the strained liquid becomes clear. Skipping or rushing this leaves the glaze and sauce murky.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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