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A Salmi of Game

A stew of game with veal gravy, spices, sherry, and fried bread sippets.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

A Salmi of Game

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the game

  1. Roast the birds halfway if they are not dressed.

  2. Remove all skin and fat, saving the fat.

  3. Cut the birds into joints or smaller pieces and place them in a stewpan with the saved fat, mace, bay leaf, shallots, and peppercorns.

Make the gravy

  1. Add 3 cups of veal gravy and reduce to 1 cup.

  2. Strain and remove excess fat.

  3. Season with more salt and cayenne if needed, then return the game to the gravy, discarding the trimmings.

  4. Heat gently without boiling.

Serve

  1. Cut bread into half circles and dice.

  2. Fry the bread in butter.

  3. Arrange the fried bread around a serving dish, place the game in the center, and thicken the gravy.

  4. Add 2 glasses of sherry and pour the hot gravy over the game before serving.

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. Shallot + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,898 recipes

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

  3. Shallot + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,245 recipes

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

  4. Sherry + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Sherry + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together682 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

Game birds
Provides the main meat, whose flavour is concentrated by simmering in the gravy.
Veal gravy
Forms the savoury liquid base that the game simmers in and reduces into a sauce.
Sherry
Adds aromatic depth and a mild sweetness and acidity to the finished gravy.
Shallots
Release mild sweetness and aroma into the gravy during gentle cooking.
Bread
Fried sippets that soak up gravy and add crisp contrast to the soft meat.
Butter
Browns the bread during frying and adds richness and aroma.

The step that matters

Heat gently without boiling. Boiling toughens the proteins in game meat, making it dry and stringy, and can make the gravy cloudy or greasy. Gentle heat keeps the meat tender and the sauce smooth.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, shallot, pepper, sherry, butter, bread):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, shallot, pepper, sherry, butter, 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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