Why it works: Salmon and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,481 recipes. Both carry 2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, green. The science ↓
Salt Salmon
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Soak the salted salmon in water overnight.
Cook
In the morning, place the salmon in a frying pan with a little cold water and let it simmer for 10 minutes.
Pour off the water, add a piece of butter to the pan, and fry the salmon until cooked through.
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 + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,481 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Salted salmon
- Provides the main protein and savory flavor, with salt cured into the flesh.
- Butter
- Adds fat and richness, and helps the salmon brown as it fries.
The step that matters
Soaking the salted salmon overnight. Salt draws moisture out of fish and concentrates its flavor. Soaking in water pulls out surface and excess salt, so the fish is not overly salty once cooked. Skipping or shortening the soak can leave the salmon too salty.
“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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