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Salmis of Thrushes

A dish of roasted thrush halves served with a brown sauce and fried bread crusts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Salmis of Thrushes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the thrushes

  1. Roast the thrushes without drawing them.

  2. Divide each thrush in half and trim the halves.

  3. Place the halves in a stewpan and glaze them, keeping them warm in a bain-marie.

Make the sauce

  1. In another stewpan, combine trimmings, aromatics, gravy, and white wine; cover and boil briefly.

  2. Strain the liquid through a sieve.

  3. In a stewpan, reduce the brown sauce, stirring in the strained liquid until thickened.

  4. Pour the sauce over the half-thrushes.

Make the liver garnish and serve

  1. In a frying pan, cook the intestines, livers, and bacon; season and fry until done.

  2. Pound the mixture and strain it through a sieve.

  3. Mix the puree with a little glaze and use it to coat the fried bread crusts.

  4. At serving time, plate the thrush halves and garnish with the crusts.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Liver + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together731 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. White wine + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together827 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

Sauce and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Thrushes
Form the main body of the dish, with their rich dark meat carrying the sauce.
Brown sauce
Provides the body and savoury depth of the sauce when reduced.
Poultry livers
Add richness and a smooth, savoury puree when cooked and strained.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma to the braising liquid that flavours the sauce.
Gravy
Adds meaty flavour and moisture to the liquid used for the sauce.

The step that matters

Reducing the brown sauce with the strained liquid. Reducing concentrates flavour and thickens the sauce through evaporation and starch. Stop too early and the sauce stays thin; reduce too far and it becomes overly salty and sticky.

“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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