Why it works: Salmon and anchovy work together. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 535 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓
Broiled Salmon
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Cut salmon into slices 1 to 1.5 inches thick.
Dry the slices with a cloth and season with salt and pepper.
Dredge the slices in sifted flour.
Broil
Grease a gridiron with suet and broil the slices until cooked.
Alternatively, butter sheets of white paper, wrap each slice, and twist the ends.
Broil the wrapped slices gently over a clear fire.
Serve
Serve with anchovy or caper sauce, adding chopped herbs and spices if desired.
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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Salmon + anchovytop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together535 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + anchovytop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,697 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Salmon + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,481 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
-
Pepper + anchovytop 17% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together3,232 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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 dish, cooking to a flaky texture when broiled.
- Sifted flour
- Dry coating that helps the outside of the slices brown and seal during broiling.
- Suet
- Fat used to grease the gridiron so the fish releases cleanly and does not stick.
- Anchovy or caper sauce
- Adds salty, acidic flavour to balance the rich, mild fish.
The step that matters
Broil the wrapped slices gently over a clear fire. Gentle heat cooks the salmon through without drying it out. Strong, fierce heat can scorch the paper or coating and toughen the flesh before the centre is done.
“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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