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Ducks En Salmis

A stew of duck pieces with consommé, ham, onion, parsley, plain sauce, egg yolk, and cream, garnished with fried bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Ham and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,536 recipes. Both carry 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline, which smells popcorn, roasted. The science ↓

Ducks En Salmis

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the duck

  1. Cut the half-roasted ducks into pieces, separating the legs, wings, and breast from the backbone.

  2. In a stewpan, gently stew the legs and wings in a little consommé until nearly dry.

Make the sauce

  1. In another stewpan, add the backbone, onion, ham, parsley, and consommé.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  3. Add the plain sauce.

  4. Let it boil gently, stirring occasionally until thickened.

  5. Squeeze the mixture through a fine sieve into the stewpan with the duck pieces and heat thoroughly.

Finish and serve

  1. Place the duck on a serving dish garnished with fried bread.

  2. Stir the egg yolk and cream into the sauce.

  3. Pour the sauce over the duck.

  4. 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. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  2. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  3. Sauce + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Parsley + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,588 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Ducks
Provide the meat, which is gently stewed to tenderness in the consommé.
Plain sauce
Thickens the liquid into a coating sauce for the duck.
Egg yolk
Enriches and thickens the sauce as it sets gently with the cream.
Cream
Adds richness and smoothness, softening the sauce's texture.

The step that matters

Stir in the egg yolk and cream. Egg yolk thickens when heated but can curdle or scramble if the sauce boils after it is added. Keep the sauce hot but not boiling, and stir constantly while adding.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, ham, sauce, egg, cream, bread):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Garlicfits about as well
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, ham, sauce, egg, cream, bread. 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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