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 ↓
Baked Salmon
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the salmon
Boil the salmon in the pan for 20 minutes.
Open the can and pour off the oil.
Let the salmon cool, then pick the salmon into pieces.
Make the sauce
In a pot, boil the milk with the onion tied in a bag.
In a separate bowl, rub the flour into the butter.
Stir in the flour and butter mixture when the milk boils.
Season the sauce with red pepper, salt, and chopped parsley.
Bake and serve
In a baking dish, layer the fish and sauce.
Sprinkle the top with bread or cracker crumbs.
Bake at 400°F (200°C) until light brown.
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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Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together34,122 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
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Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together25,843 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
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Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together11,466 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Lake salmon
- Forms the main body of the dish, flaking into tender pieces within the sauce.
- Rich milk
- Becomes the creamy liquid base that gives the sauce its richness and smoothness.
- Flour
- Starch thickens the milk into a sauce that holds the fish together.
- Butter
- Adds fat for richness and flavor and helps the flour blend smoothly.
- Onion
- Infuses the milk with aroma as it simmers, then is removed in the bag.
- Bread or cracker crumbs
- Toasts in the oven to form a golden, crisp top layer.
The step that matters
Adding the flour and butter mixture to the milk. Flour coated in butter disperses more evenly, and stirring it into boiling milk keeps the starch from clumping. Stirring as it heats lets the starch thicken the sauce smoothly instead of leaving lumps.
Swap the onion
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, milk, flour, butter, pepper, parsley, bread):
- Shallotfits better
- Chivefits better
- Potatofits better
- Onionthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, milk, flour, butter, pepper, parsley, 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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