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Entree of Fresh Salmon and Capers

A fried salmon entrée coated in herbs and breadcrumbs, served with cullis sauce and capers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Entree of Fresh Salmon and Capers

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare a mixture of parsley, thyme, basil, and shallots, chopped very fine.

  2. In a bowl, combine the chopped herbs with sweet oil, egg yolks, cayenne pepper, and salt.

  3. Dip each slice of salmon into the mixture, then coat with fine bread crumbs.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat lard in a pan until boiling, then fry the salmon slices until golden brown.

  2. Drain the fried salmon on paper towels.

  3. Serve the salmon with cullis sauce and sprinkle with chopped capers.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Thyme + basiltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  3. Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Thyme + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,476 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Parsley + basiltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,351 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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 interior under a crisp coating.
Egg yolks
Bind the herb mixture so it adheres to the salmon and the bread crumbs.
Fine bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden browned crust when fried.
Sweet oil
Adds fat that carries the herbs and helps the coating brown.

The step that matters

Frying the coated salmon in boiling lard. Lard at a high temperature sears the bread crumb coating quickly, so it turns golden and crisp before the fish overcooks. If the fat is not hot enough, the coating absorbs oil and turns greasy.

Swap the basil

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, parsley, thyme, shallot, egg, pepper, bread):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Basilthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, parsley, thyme, shallot, egg, pepper, bread. 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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