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 with Cream Sauce
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the fish
Butter a sheet of parchment paper on both sides.
Wrap the fish in the paper, pinning the ends securely.
Bake
Place in a baking pan.
Pour 6-7 tablespoons of cream over the fish.
Bake 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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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Salmon + creamtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,401 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
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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
- Whole salmon
- Forms the main body of the dish and firms and flakes as its proteins set with heat.
- Cream
- Adds moisture and richness, helping the fish stay tender while it bakes.
The step that matters
Bake until cooked through. Salmon dries out and turns firm and chalky when overcooked, because its proteins tighten as they heat. Check for the flesh to turn opaque and flake easily, and stop baking once it does.
“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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