Name: Salmon Cutlets or Cotellettes De Saumon
Ingredients: Forcemeat for salmon; Mushrooms; Truffles; Sauce; Egg; Bread crumbs; Clarified butter; Fried parsley

Why it works: Mushroom and truffle are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,900 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Salmon Cutlets or Cotellettes De Saumon

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare forcemeat for salmon and rub it through a coarse sieve.
Butter the sides and bottom of cutlet-shaped molds.
Fill each mold with a ½ inch layer of forcemeat.
Add a cold salpicon of mushrooms and truffles, thickened with sauce, to the molds.
Top with another layer of forcemeat, filling to just below the brim.
Place molds in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for 6 minutes to poach the cutlets.
Turn out the molds and sprinkle cutlets with a mixture of egg and bread crumbs.
Fry the cutlets in clarified butter until cooked.
Arrange cutlets on a dish, garnish with fried parsley, and serve with shrimp sauce or pea puree.

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.

Mushroom + truffletop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,900 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,525 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
Mushroom + breadtop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,536 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Truffle + buttertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,209 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

Swap the parsley

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

Capersfits better
Parsleythe original
Nutmegfits about as well
Thymefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, mushroom, truffle, sauce, egg, bread, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.