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Salmi of Prairie Chicken

A broth made from prairie chicken, onion, herbs, pork, sherry, and lemon, thickened with flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and pork match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,417 recipes. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓

Salmi of Prairie Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Combine chicken bones, skin, onion, sweet herbs, pork, and any leftover gravy or dressing in a pot.

  2. Add 1 pint of water and stew for 1 hour.

  3. Skim the mixture.

  4. Strain the mixture into a chafing dish.

Finish the gravy

  1. Add the sherry and lemon juice.

  2. Thicken with brown flour if needed.

  3. Boil the gravy.

Serve

  1. Pour the gravy over the reserved chicken joints.

  2. Serve hot.

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. Chicken + porktop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,417 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  2. Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  3. Onion + porktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

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

  4. Chicken + sherrytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together891 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

  5. Chicken + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,092 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

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

What each ingredient does

Prairie chickens
Provide the main meat and flavour for the soup and joints served in the gravy.
Brown flour
Thickens the gravy as its starch swells when heated in the liquid.
Brown sherry
Adds sweetness and a mellow, roasted aroma to the gravy.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich flavour of the gravy.

The step that matters

Thicken with brown flour if needed. Flour must be cooked in the hot liquid long enough to swell and lose its raw taste. Adding it to cold liquid causes lumps, so stir it in well and boil the gravy afterward.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, onion, pork, sherry, flour):

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Grapefits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, onion, pork, sherry, 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.

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