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Salmis Au Bernadin

Salmis au Bernadin is a roasted game bird dish served with a sauce of liver, lemon, mustard, wine, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper 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 ↓

Salmis Au Bernadin

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the birds

  1. Roast the woodcocks or snipes, but do not overcook them.

  2. Divide the birds into wings, legs, breasts, and rumps, and place them apart.

Make the sauce

  1. In a silver dish, crush the livers and trails of the birds.

  2. Add the lemon juice and thin lemon peel to the dish.

  3. Season the bird pieces with salt, spices, mustard, and white wine.

  4. Place the mixture on a chafing dish over a flame, stirring well to combine the seasoning.

  5. Ensure the ragout does not boil; heat it until warm.

  6. Sprinkle with the best oil, reduce the heat, and stir for a few minutes.

  7. Serve immediately while very hot.

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

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

  2. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + white winetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  4. Lemon + mustardtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,816 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Pepper + white winetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,433 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

Woodcocks or snipes
Provide the main meat, which stays tender if not overcooked.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and balances the rich livers.
White wine
Adds acidity and liquid that moistens and loosens the sauce.
Mustard
Adds sharp flavour and helps emulsify the sauce.

The step that matters

Ensure the ragout does not boil. Boiling a sauce containing liver and egg-free emulsifiers can make it grainy and split, and overheating toughens delicate meat. Gentle warming keeps the texture smooth.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, pepper, white 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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