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Salmi of Game

A stew made from the remains of roast game, flavored with herbs, stock, and wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and tomato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,606 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Salmi of Game

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock base

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat.

  2. Fry any bones and trimmings of the game until slightly browned.

  3. Add the carrot and onion and let them brown.

  4. Stir in the flour and let it brown to a deep golden color.

  5. Add the stock, herbs, peppercorns, tomato, mushrooms, and Bovril.

  6. Bring to a boil.

  7. Simmer gently for 45 minutes.

  8. Strain the mixture and return it to the saucepan.

Finish the sauce

  1. Add the port wine and jelly and bring to a boil.

  2. Add the game.

  3. Cut it into neat joints.

  4. Heat without boiling.

  5. If too thick, add a little more stock.

Serve

  1. Serve the joints in the center of a hot dish and pour sauce over the joints.

  2. Optionally, serve on a croute of fried bread.

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. Carrot + tomatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,606 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Tomato + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,719 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

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

  5. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Browned with the fat to form a roux that thickens the sauce.
Butter
Carries the frying of the bones and vegetables and adds richness to the sauce.
Stock
Forms the liquid base of the sauce and carries its flavor.
Port wine
Adds depth, sweetness and acidity to the finished sauce.
Red currant jelly
Adds sweetness and a glossy body to the sauce.
Bovril
Adds concentrated savoury, meaty flavor to the stock.

The step that matters

Heat without boiling. Once the port and jelly are added, a hard boil can make the sauce taste harsh and can break or thicken it unevenly, so keep it at a gentle heat.

Swap the red currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, onion, carrot, tomato, mushroom, port wine):

  1. Plumfits better
  2. Cherryfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Red currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, onion, carrot, tomato, mushroom, port wine. 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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