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Woodcocks in a Salmis

A dish of roasted woodcocks served in a consommé-based sauce with parsley, onion, ham, plain sauce, port wine, egg yolk, cream, and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Ham and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,536 recipes. Both carry 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline, which smells popcorn, roasted. The science ↓

Woodcocks in a Salmis

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the woodcock

  1. Remove the legs, breasts, and wings from the roasted woodcocks and skin them.

  2. Place the woodcock pieces in a stewpan and the backbones in another pan.

Make the sauce

  1. Add the consommé, parsley, onion, peppercorns, and ham to the pan with the backbones.

  2. Boil for about 5 minutes, then add the plain sauce and port wine.

  3. Let it boil gently, stirring occasionally, until it thickens.

  4. Strain the sauce over the woodcock pieces and heat for 2 minutes.

  5. Stir in the egg yolk and a little cream.

Serve

  1. Remove the woodcock from the sauce and place it on a dish.

  2. Garnish with fried bread and place the heads of the woodcocks in the center with beaks pointing up.

  3. Squeeze a little lemon juice into the sauce and pour it over the dish.

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

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

  2. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Sauce + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Port wine + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together321 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Woodcock
Provides the main meat, which is cooked gently in the sauce to stay tender.
Egg yolk
Thickens the sauce and gives it a rich, smooth body when stirred in.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth of flavour to the reduced sauce.
Cream
Adds richness and smooths the texture of the finished sauce.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich sauce.

The step that matters

Stirring in the egg yolk and cream. Egg yolk thickens when heated gently; if the sauce is too hot or boils after adding it, the yolk can scramble and turn grainy. Keep the heat low and stir constantly.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, ham, sauce, port wine, egg, cream, bread):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Garlicfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, ham, sauce, port wine, egg, cream, bread. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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