Name: Fried Salmon with Tartar Sauce
Ingredients: 2 slices of salmon (¾ inch thick); 1 handful of salt; 1 oz fine bread crumbs; ¼ nutmeg (grated); ¼ teaspoon white pepper; 1 teaspoon finely chopped parsley; 2 oz butter; ½ lb boiling butter or lard; 5 eggs

Why it works: Nutmeg and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,062 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Fried Salmon with Tartar Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Wash the salmon in salted water and dry it with a clean cloth.
Season the bread crumbs with grated nutmeg, white pepper, and parsley.
Melt the butter, dip the salmon in it, and coat with the seasoned crumbs.

Fry and serve

Fry the salmon in boiling butter or lard over gentle heat for 18-20 minutes.
Drain the salmon and serve on a cold dish with tartar sauce made from boiled eggs.

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.

Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,062 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Nutmeg + white peppertop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,375 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,662 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
Bread + nutmegtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,997 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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, moist texture under the coating.
Bread crumbs: Form a crisp, golden coating that protects the fish while it fries.
Butter: Carries the seasoned crumbs and adds richness and flavour to the coating.
Eggs: Boiled to make the tartar sauce, adding richness and body to the sauce.

The step that matters

Fry the salmon over gentle heat. Gentle heat lets the fish cook through to a moist, flaky centre while the crumb coating browns evenly. Too much heat scorches the crumbs before the fish is cooked, and too little leaves the coating pale and greasy.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, bread, nutmeg, parsley, butter, egg):

Capersfits better
Cinnamonfits better
Marjoramfits better
White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, bread, nutmeg, parsley, butter, egg. 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.

Brown Bread461 recipes

Salmon Salad155 recipes

Salmon Croquettes129 recipes

White Bread80 recipes

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Fried Salmon with Tartar Sauce