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Salmi, or Hash, of Ducks

A duck hash made by roasting ducks, simmering them in a gravy of cullis, Port wine, shallots, spices, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Salmi, or Hash, of Ducks

Ingredients

Directions

Roast and cut

  1. Roast the ducks until half done.

  2. Cut the ducks into joints.

Make the sauce

  1. Combine the gravy, cullis, Port wine, and chopped shallots in a pot.

  2. Season with a little Cayenne pepper, coarse sea salt, and garlic.

  3. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  4. Strain the boiling mixture over the duck.

Simmer and serve

  1. Place the duck in a stewpot with boiling water.

  2. Let it simmer for 30 minutes.

  3. Add a little lemon juice 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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Shallot + garlictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,000 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Pepper + garlictop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,090 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Ducks
Provide the main meat, which is partly roasted and then simmered until tender.
Cullis
Adds body and concentrated savory flavor to the sauce.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth to the sauce as it reduces.
Chopped shallots
Add mild aromatic sweetness that blends into the sauce.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich sauce and duck.

Swap the garlic

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Garlicthe original

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