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Crimped Salmon

A salmon dish simmered in a sauce of butter, carrot, onion, herbs, wine, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,108 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Crimped Salmon

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. In a stewpan, combine butter, carrot, onion, bay leaf, thyme, mace, and cloves over low heat for 30 minutes.

  2. Pour in the wine and let it boil slowly.

  3. Strain the liquid through a sieve, reduce it, and add the sauce tournee.

  4. Just before serving, stir in cold butter, lemon juice, and cayenne pepper.

Cook and serve the salmon

  1. Boil the salmon in water to cover, with mace, sweet herbs, and onions with cloves.

  2. Drain the salmon.

  3. Pour the sauce over it.

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. Thyme + clovetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Carrot + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds richness and flavour to the base and gives the finished sauce a glossy, smooth body.
Madeira or other white wine
Adds acidity and aromatic depth that balances the richness of the sauce.
Sauce tournee
Provides the thickened base that gives the sauce its body and coating texture.
Salmon
Forms the main protein, which turns opaque and firm as it cooks in simmering water.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich sauce and balances its fat.

The step that matters

Stirring in the cold butter just before serving. Whisking cold butter into a hot reduced sauce emulsifies it, giving a glossy, smooth texture. If the sauce is kept boiling or the butter is added too early, it can separate and look greasy.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, carrot, onion, thyme, clove, white wine, sauce):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, carrot, onion, thyme, clove, white wine, sauce. 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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