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Baked Salmon Trout

A whole salmon trout baked with butter, water, cream, and parsley, served with a sauce made from the pan gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Baked Salmon Trout

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the fish

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. Lay the cleaned fish in a baking pan with enough water to prevent scorching.

  3. If the fish is large, score the backbone with a sharp knife.

Bake

  1. Bake slowly, basting often with melted butter and water.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. In a saucepan, combine cream and hot water, then stir in melted butter and chopped parsley.

  2. Heat the mixture in a double boiler until warm.

  3. Add the gravy from the baking pan to the cream mixture and boil briefly to thicken.

  4. Pour the sauce over the baked trout and serve, garnished with parsley.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Salmon + creamtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,401 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  4. Salmon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  5. Salmon + parsleytop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).

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

What each ingredient does

Salmon trout
Forms the main body of the dish and carries the flavour of the sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture while basting, and enriches the sauce.
Cream
Gives the sauce a smooth, rich body.
Gravy from baking pan
Adds concentrated savoury flavour and body to the sauce as it boils and thickens.

The step that matters

Boil the sauce briefly to thicken. Cream thickens as it reduces, but boiling it too long can cause it to separate or become grainy. A brief boil with the pan gravy thickens it while keeping it smooth.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, butter, cream):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, butter, cream. 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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