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Woodcocks in a Salmis

A dish of roasted woodcocks simmered in a sauce with parsley, onion, ham, plain sauce, Port wine, egg yolk, and cream, garnished with fried bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Ham and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,536 recipes. Both carry 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline, which smells popcorn, roasted. The science ↓

Woodcocks in a Salmis

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the woodcock

  1. Remove the legs, breasts, and wings from the roasted woodcocks.

  2. Skin the woodcocks.

  3. Place the woodcock pieces in a stewpan.

Make the sauce

  1. Combine the backbone, consommé, parsley, onion, peppercorns, and ham in another pan.

  2. Boil the mixture for about 5 minutes.

  3. Add the plain sauce and Port wine.

  4. Let it boil gently, stirring occasionally, until it thickens.

  5. Strain the sauce over the woodcock pieces.

  6. Heat the strained sauce for 2 minutes.

  7. Stir in the egg yolk and cream.

  8. Squeeze lemon juice into the sauce.

Serve

  1. Remove the woodcock from the sauce.

  2. Place the woodcock on a dish.

  3. Garnish with fried bread.

  4. Place the heads in the center with beaks pointing up.

  5. Pour the sauce over the dish.

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. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  2. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  3. Sauce + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Port wine + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together321 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Woodcocks
Provide the main meat, which is cooked gently in the sauce to stay moist and tender.
Port wine
Adds depth, sweetness and acidity to the sauce as it reduces.
Egg yolk
Thickens the sauce and gives it a smooth, rich texture when stirred in gently.
Cream
Adds richness and fat, softening the sauce's flavour and texture.
Plain sauce
Forms the base body of the sauce that is reduced and thickened.

The step that matters

Stir in the egg yolk and cream. The sauce must be hot enough to thicken the yolk, but not boiling, or the egg will scramble and turn grainy. Adding it off the heat or at a gentle warmth keeps the sauce smooth.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, ham, sauce, port wine, egg, cream, bread):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Garlicfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, ham, sauce, port wine, egg, cream, bread. 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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