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Salmon Cutlets

Salmon cutlets are breaded and fried salmon slices served with pickle or tartar sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Salmon Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the skin and bones from the salmon slices and trim them into cutlet shapes.

  2. Sprinkle the cutlets with salt, pepper, and flour.

Bread and fry

  1. Dip the cutlets into the beaten eggs mixed with chopped parsley or onion.

  2. Coat the cutlets with bread crumbs.

  3. Fry the cutlets in boiling lard until golden brown.

  4. Sauté the cutlets in butter until golden brown.

Serve

  1. Arrange the cutlets in a circle on a plate.

  2. Pour pickle or tartar sauce in the center.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

Flour and butter 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

Salmon
Forms the main body of the cutlets and provides the flesh that cooks through during frying.
Eggs
Bind the flour and bread crumbs to the fish so the coating stays attached while frying.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden outer crust when fried.
All-purpose flour
Dries the fish surface so the egg and crumb coating adheres evenly.
Lard or butter
Conducts heat to the coating and promotes browning and a crisp crust.

The step that matters

Coating the cutlets. The flour must be light and even, and the crumbs pressed on firmly, so the egg binds the coating. Wet or uneven fish can release moisture, causing the crust to loosen or steam instead of crisping in the hot fat.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, pepper, flour, egg, bread, butter, sauce):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, pepper, flour, egg, bread, butter, sauce. 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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