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Salmi of Grouse

A salmi of grouse: grouse joints simmered in a stock, vegetable and brown roux sauce, with mushrooms, served on buttered toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 Grouse

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the grouse

  1. Cut the grouse into joints.

  2. Divide the breasts into two pieces each.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, combine the stock, onion, carrot, celery, and parsley.

  2. Season well.

  3. Cook slowly for one hour.

  4. Rub the mixture through a colander.

  5. Stir in the brown roux.

  6. Bring to a boil.

Cook and serve

  1. Add the grouse to the saucepan, ensuring it does not boil.

  2. Place it in a saucepan of boiling water to keep at the scalding point for 30 minutes.

  3. At the end, add the mushrooms.

  4. Serve.

  5. If using giblets, mince them. Mix the minced giblets with butter. Season the giblet mixture. Spread the giblet mixture on buttered toast before serving.

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

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

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

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

  5. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 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

Grouse
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender when held gently at scalding heat rather than boiled.
Stock or consommé
Forms the liquid base of the sauce and carries the flavour of the vegetables.
Brown roux
Thickens the sauce so it coats the grouse and toast.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavour and moisture to the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Keep the grouse at scalding point. If the liquid boils, the meat toughens and its proteins contract, drying the bird. Holding it just below the boil keeps the meat tender and moist.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, celery, parsley, mushroom, butter, pepper):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, celery, parsley, mushroom, butter, 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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