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Simplified Salmis of Pheasant

A pheasant wrapped in bacon, stewed with wine, aromatics, livers, and truffle trimmings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Simplified Salmis of Pheasant

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pheasant

  1. Draw the pheasant.

  2. Truss the pheasant.

  3. Wrap the pheasant in bacon.

  4. Place the wrapped pheasant in a stewpan with scraped bacon, ham remnants, neck, and gizzard.

  5. Fry on low heat for 15 minutes.

  6. Moisten the stew with white wine.

  7. Add aromatics and truffle trimmings to the stew.

  8. Bring the stew to a boil.

  9. Move the stewpan to the oven entrance.

Make the liver mixture

  1. In another stewpan, fry the pheasant liver and poultry livers in butter, seasoning to taste.

  2. Cool the liver mixture.

  3. Pound the cooled mixture with butter.

  4. Dilute the mixture with a little sauce.

  5. Sieve the mixture.

Carve and finish the sauce

  1. When the pheasant is done, drain it.

  2. Untruss the pheasant.

  3. Cut the pheasant into eight pieces.

  4. Remove the skin from the pieces.

  5. Glaze the pieces.

  6. Keep the glazed pieces warm in a small stewpan.

  7. Pound the bones and trimmings in a mortar.

  8. Add the pounded bones and trimmings to the stewpan with drained fat, Madeira, and gravy.

  9. Simmer briefly.

  10. Strain the stew through a cloth wrung by two people.

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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. White wine + buttertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. White wine + thymetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,503 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  4. Truffle + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,209 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  5. Ham + truffletop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together516 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

Pheasant
Main protein; the bacon wrap and slow braising keep the meat moist.
Bacon
Wraps the bird and renders fat that bastes the meat and flavours the stew.
Pheasant and poultry livers
Enrich the sauce and give a smooth, rich texture once pounded and sieved.
White wine
Acidity that lifts and deglazes the savoury braising liquid.
Madeira wine
Adds sweetness and depth to the finished sauce.
Butter
Fat that enriches the liver mixture and adds a rounded, silky finish.

The step that matters

Cooling and sieving the liver mixture. Livers cooked too hot turn grainy and bitter; cooling before pounding and then sieving gives a smooth, even purée that will not curdle or speckle the sauce.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pheasant, ham, white wine, thyme, truffle, liver, butter):

  1. Marjoramfits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Sagefits about as well
  4. Tarragonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against pheasant, ham, white wine, thyme, truffle, liver, butter. 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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