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Salmi of Wild Fowl

A stew of wild ducks, widgeon, and teal simmered in gravy with port wine, shallot, browning, catsup, pepper, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Port wine and shallot work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 380 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Salmi of Wild Fowl

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Cut the wild fowl into joints.

  2. Stew the joints in a good gravy.

  3. Add ⅓ cup port wine, chopped shallot, browning, catsup, pepper, and coarse sea salt.

  4. Stew for 30 minutes.

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. Port wine + shallottop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together380 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

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

  3. Port wine + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,804 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

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

What each ingredient does

Wild ducks
Dark meat that becomes tender and rich during slow stewing.
Widgeon
Lean wild fowl whose meat softens and flavours the gravy as it stews.
Teal
Small wild fowl that adds gamey depth to the stewing liquid.
Good gravy
Forms the liquid base that carries flavour and keeps the joints moist.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth of flavour to the gravy.
Shallot
Contributes a mild onion-like aroma that mellows during stewing.

The step that matters

Stew for 30 minutes. Keep the stew at a gentle simmer rather than a hard boil. Vigorous boiling toughens the meat and can make the gravy cloudy, while slow, steady heat lets the connective tissue break down so the joints become tender.

Swap the shallot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (port wine, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Shallotthe original
  3. Carrotfits about as well
  4. Tomatofits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against port wine, 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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