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Salmis Sauce

A savory sauce made with butter, onion, tomato, mushrooms, herbs, bird bones, flour, wine, meat extract, brown sauce, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley 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 ↓

Salmis Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Melt the butter in a pan over medium heat.

  2. Add the diced onion, tomato slices, chopped mushrooms, thyme, parsley, mignonette pepper, and bird bones.

  3. Cover and fry for about 15 minutes.

  4. Stir in the flour, port wine or sherry, extract of meat, brown sauce, red pepper, and carmine.

  5. Boil for about 15 minutes, skimming as needed.

  6. Remove the bones, strain the sauce, and use.

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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

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

  3. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Tomato + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,370 recipes

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

  5. Mushroom + thymetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,557 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Provides fat for frying the vegetables and carries their flavour into the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as it cooks, giving it body.
Brown sauce
Forms the base of the sauce, supplying most of its body and savoury flavour.
Port wine or sherry
Adds acidity and sweetness that deepen the sauce's flavour.
Extract of meat
Adds concentrated meaty savour to the sauce.

The step that matters

Boil for about 15 minutes, skimming as needed. Simmering concentrates flavour and reduces the sauce, while skimming removes foam and impurities that would otherwise cloud its appearance and taste.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, tomato, mushroom, thyme, parsley, pepper, flour):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, tomato, mushroom, thyme, parsley, 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.

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