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Salmi of Pheasant

A pheasant stew made with game remains, vegetables, stock, and brown sherry, garnished with fried breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Salmi of Pheasant

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the game

  1. Cut the remains of the game into neat pieces, removing all skin and fat.

  2. Collect bones and trimmings, and stew them with a bay leaf and bacon in leftover gravy or stock.

Make the sauce

  1. Add onion, carrot, turnip, celery, parsley, and peppercorns; stew until the gravy is strong and flavorful.

  2. Strain the gravy and boil again if necessary, thickening with brown thickening or 1 teaspoon of corn flour mixed with cold water.

  3. Season the gravy with salt and pepper, add the game pieces, and heat gently without boiling.

  4. Ten minutes before serving, add ½ cup of brown sherry or Madeira.

Serve

  1. Arrange the game in the center of a dish, pour the sauce over, and garnish with fried bread crumbs.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Remains of game (pheasant)
Provides the meat that gives the stew its main body and flavor.
Gravy or stock
Forms the liquid base that carries flavor and becomes the sauce.
Brown sherry or madeira
Adds fortified wine sweetness and aroma to the finished sauce.
Corn flour
Thickens the strained gravy so it coats the game.

The step that matters

Heat the game gently without boiling. Boiling toughens meat proteins and can make the pieces dry and stringy, so the game should only be warmed through in the seasoned gravy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pheasant, clove, carrot, turnip, celery, parsley, pepper):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pheasant, clove, carrot, turnip, celery, parsley, pepper. 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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