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Salmis of Pheasant

A sauce made from pheasant trimmings, mushrooms, truffle, butter, white wine, and stock, served over roasted pheasant.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Mushroom and truffle are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,900 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Salmis of Pheasant

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pheasant

  1. Roast the pheasant until cooked through.

  2. Cut the pheasant into pieces at the joints. Remove all the skin from the pieces. Arrange the pieces on a dish and keep them warm.

  3. Chop the trimmings from the pheasant with the mushrooms and truffle, if using.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat. Add the chopped trimmings and mushrooms to the butter.

  2. When the butter turns pale golden, add the white wine and stock. Simmer the mixture for 15 minutes.

  3. Carefully skim any fat from the surface.

  4. Pour the hot sauce over the pheasant and serve.

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. Mushroom + truffletop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,900 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  2. Mushroom + white winetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,765 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

  3. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  4. Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Pheasant
Provides the main meat and, through its trimmings, the savory flavor of the sauce.
Mushrooms
Add earthy, savory depth to the sauce as they cook in the butter.
Butter
Carries the aromatics and adds richness and a rounded flavor to the sauce.
Chablis (white wine)
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and helps lift its flavor during simmering.
Stock
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, adding body and savory flavor as it reduces.

The step that matters

Simmer the mixture for 15 minutes. Simmering lets the wine and stock reduce and concentrate, giving the sauce body and flavor. Too vigorous a boil can break the butter and cloud the sauce, so keep it at a gentle simmer.

“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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