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Salmis in General

A savory pie of rabbit or hare and woodcock with ragout of minced entrails, bacon, mushrooms, herbs, and white wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Salmis in General

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the game

  1. Cut up the rabbit or hare and break the bones.

  2. Bone the hare and use only the meat for the pie.

  3. Quarter the woodcock and place the minced entrails and minced bacon at the bottom of the pie.

Make the ragout

  1. Prepare a ragout by stirring flour and butter in a pan until golden brown.

  2. Moisten with white wine and add mushrooms, parsley, sweet herbs, pepper, spices, and salt.

  3. Boil for 30 minutes, skim, and add parboiled sweetbreads or truffles.

  4. Let it stew until cooked, then fill the pie with the ragout.

Serve

  1. Serve with a squeeze of Seville orange juice.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. White wine + mushroomtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,765 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

  3. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Parsley + orangetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together680 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Browned with butter to form a roux that thickens the ragout.
Butter
Fat that is browned with the flour, adding richness and nutty flavour to the ragout.
White wine
Moistens the pan and adds acidity that brightens the rich game flavour.
Bacon
Adds fat and savoury flavour to the minced filling at the base of the pie.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavour and moisture to the ragout as it stews.

The step that matters

Browning the flour and butter. Flour and butter must reach a deep golden brown before liquid is added. Cooking the raw flour out develops nutty flavour and prevents a pasty, floury taste and lumps in the ragout.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rabbit, white wine, flour, butter, mushroom, parsley, pepper):

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Mangofits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, white wine, flour, butter, mushroom, parsley, pepper. 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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