Skip to main content
Main

Hot Salmi of Game

A hot stew of game birds with bacon, onion, tomato, mushrooms, herbs, and a sauce of stock, claret, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Tomato and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,719 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Hot Salmi of Game

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Melt the butter over low heat in a saucepan.

  2. Add the pork or bacon, onion, tomato, mushrooms, game bird remnants, herbs, and pepper.

  3. Simmer for 15 minutes.

Make the sauce

  1. Mix the flour with the stock and claret.

  2. Add the mixture to the saucepan.

  3. Simmer for 20 minutes.

  4. Strain the sauce into a clean saucepan, removing any fat.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the game bird to the sauce and cover until heated through.

  2. Serve with braised olives in the center and croutons around.

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. Tomato + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,719 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  2. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

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

  3. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  4. Pork + mushroomtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-propylphenol (allspice, anise).

  5. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 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

Game birds
Provide the main meat, whose flavour and connective tissue enrich the stew as it simmers.
Flour
Thickens the stock and claret into a smooth, lightly bodied sauce.
Claret
Adds acidity and wine flavour that balances the richness of the meat and fat.
Stock
Supplies the liquid base that the sauce is built on and carries the flavours.
Salt streaky pork or bacon
Adds savoury fat and smoky depth that season the sauce as it cooks.
Onion
Releases sweetness and aromatic flavour as it softens in the butter.

The step that matters

Removing the fat from the strained sauce. Fat from the meat and pork rises to the surface and can make the sauce greasy and oily on the palate. Skimming it off before the game bird is added leaves a cleaner, glossier sauce.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, pork, onion, mushroom, meat, pepper, flour):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pork, onion, mushroom, meat, pepper, flour. 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.

You might also like

Meatless Tomato SoupMeatless Tomato Soup23 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipesPork CakePork Cake107 recipes