Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓
Fresh Salmon Stewed
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the salmon
Clean and wash the salmon, then cut it into round slices or fillets, about 1 inch thick.
Place the slices in a large dish and sprinkle a little coarse sea salt over them.
Let the salted salmon rest for 30 minutes. Turn the salmon over and let it rest for another 30 minutes.
Wash, drain, and dry the salmon slices with a clean towel.
Stew the salmon
Grease a large fish kettle strainer with fresh butter.
Lay the salmon pieces on the greased strainer.
Cover the salmon with thin slices of lemon, shallots, parsley, and whole peppercorns.
Set the kettle over a bed of live coals and cover the lid with hot ashes. Maintain heat for 1 hour while the fish stews.
Once cooked, remove the lemon, shallots, and parsley from the kettle.
Make the sauce
To make the sauce, mix ½ cup fresh butter with 1 tablespoon flour in a quart tin vessel.
Add 1 tablespoon water and the seasoning left in the kettle to the sauce mixture.
Cover the vessel and place it in a larger pot of boiling water. Shake until it comes to a boil.
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.
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Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together14,037 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
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Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together3,737 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
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Lemon + shallottop 6% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together2,523 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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Flour + shallottop 6% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together2,081 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Fresh butter
- Greases the strainer and, with flour, forms the sauce that coats the fish.
- All-purpose flour
- Thickens the butter into a smooth sauce as it heats.
- Whole fresh salmon
- Forms the main body of the dish, cooked gently by steam and low heat.
The step that matters
Shaking the sauce until it boils. Butter and flour must be kept moving in a covered vessel over boiling water so the starch cooks evenly and the sauce does not scorch or lump.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, butter, flour, shallot, parsley):
- Lemonthe original
- Avocadofits about as well
- Limefits less well
- Coconutfits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, butter, flour, shallot, parsley. 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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