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Salmi of Duck or Game

A stew of duck or game with vegetables, spices, and brown sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 19 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme 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 ↓

Salmi of Duck or Game

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove all skin and gristle from the cold bird and cut it into neat joints.

  2. Bruise the bones well and place the meat aside.

Make the stock

  1. In a saucepan, combine the bones, skin, trimmings, any gravy, carrot, onion, salt, pepper, parsley, clove, blade of mace, bay leaf, thyme, and butter.

  2. Fry the mixture in the butter until light brown.

  3. Add the broth or water, wine, and sugar, then cover and let it stew until reduced by half.

  4. If you don't have brown sauce ready, prepare ½ cup of it now.

  5. Add the brown sauce to the saucepan with the bones and vegetables, and let it stew for another 30 minutes.

  6. Strain the mixture, taste for seasoning, and pour it back into the saucepan with the meat.

  7. Heat gently until just boiling, but do not let it boil.

Finish and serve

  1. Dish the bird and let the sauce boil rapidly to reduce, skimming as needed.

  2. When the sauce is thick enough to serve with the meat, pour it over the bird and serve with fried sippets, garnished with stoned olives or red currant jelly if desired.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

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

  3. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  4. Clove + thymetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Carrot + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Duck or game
Provides the main meat, which is gently cooked in the sauce until tender.
Bones
Release gelatin and savoury flavour into the sauce as they stew.
Butter
Browns the vegetables and bones, adding roasted flavour and richness to the base.
Onion
Adds sweetness and savoury depth as it softens and browns in the fat.
Red or white wine
Adds acidity and aroma, and helps lift flavour from the pan into the sauce.
Brown sauce
Adds body and colour, thickening and deepening the flavour of the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Do not let the sauce boil when heating it with the meat. Gentle heat keeps the meat tender and stops it toughening, while a rapid boil can make the meat dry and cloud the sauce.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, onion, pepper, parsley, clove, thyme, butter):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Winter savoryfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, onion, pepper, parsley, clove, thyme, 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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