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Wild Duck, Salmi of

A stew made from remains of cold roast wild ducks, stock, wine, butter, flour, citrus, onion, herbs, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,973 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Wild Duck, Salmi of

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the remains of the ducks into neat pieces.

Make the stock

  1. In a stewpan, combine the bones, trimmings, onion, thyme, and bay leaf.

  2. Cover with cold water and simmer for at least 1½ hours.

Make the roux

  1. Melt the butter in another stewpan, then stir in the flour.

  2. Cook until the mixture is lightly browned.

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. Lemon + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  4. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Orange + thymetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together442 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cooked duck
Provides the main meat and savoury flavour of the stew.
Butter
Forms the fat base of the roux, carrying flavour and helping to thicken.
Flour
Thickens the stew when cooked with butter into a roux.
Port wine or claret
Adds depth, acidity and fruity sweetness to the sauce.
Stock
Supplies the liquid base and savoury body of the stew.

The step that matters

Cook until the mixture is lightly browned. The roux must cook long enough to lose its raw flour taste, but stopping at a light brown keeps its thickening power. Overcooking darkens it and weakens thickening.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (port wine, butter, flour, orange, lemon, thyme, pepper):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against port wine, butter, flour, orange, lemon, thyme, 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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