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Fowl, Salmi of

A stew of wild fowl pieces simmered in a gravy of trimmings, bones, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Fowl, Salmi of

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the wild fowl into neatly-shaped pieces and remove the skin and fat.

  2. Boil the pieces with the trimmings and crushed bones to make gravy.

  3. Slice a shallot.

Make the gravy

  1. Add mace if desired.

  2. Season with cayenne pepper, port or claret, and lemon juice.

  3. Thicken the gravy with browned flour.

Finish the stew

  1. Place the pieces of wild fowl in a clean stewpan, pour the gravy over, and heat thoroughly without boiling.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Shallot + lemontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,523 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Shallot + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Mace + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

Mace and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Wild fowl
Forms the main body of the stew and provides its meaty flavour.
Bones
Release flavour and body into the gravy as they simmer.
Browned flour
Thickens the gravy and adds a toasted, savoury depth.
Port or claret
Adds acidity and fruity depth to the gravy.
Fat
Carries flavour and adds richness to the gravy.

The step that matters

Heat the stew without boiling. Boiling the wild fowl again can toughen the meat and make the gravy cloudy or greasy, so it should be heated gently until hot throughout.

Swap the mace

The recipe marks mace as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (shallot, pepper, lemon, flour):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against shallot, pepper, lemon, flour. 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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