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Broiled Salmon

Broiled salmon steaks seasoned with salt, pepper, and butter, garnished with parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Broiled Salmon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the salmon into 1-inch thick steaks and wash them.

  2. Dry the steaks and oil them lightly.

Broil and serve

  1. Broil over a clear fire until each side is brown.

  2. Place the salmon on a hot dish.

  3. Spread butter over the salmon.

  4. Dust both sides with salt and pepper.

  5. Garnish 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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

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

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

  4. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  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
Forms the main body of the dish; cooks into a firm, flaky texture under direct heat.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the cooked salmon a smooth, moist mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Broil until each side is brown. Thin steaks cook quickly under direct heat. Browning comes from surface Maillard reactions, but overcooking dries the flesh and makes it tough, so watch closely and check each side.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Dillfits about as well
  3. Capersfits less well
  4. Thymefits less well

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