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Baked Salmon

A whole salmon baked with salt, pepper, butter, vinegar, and flour, garnished with parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Baked Salmon

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Scale and wash the salmon, leaving the skin on.

  3. Season the fish with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

  4. Place the salmon in a baking pan with a small amount of water and cover tightly.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake for about 30 minutes, then add the butter.

  2. Continue baking for another 15 minutes.

  3. Remove the fish and garnish with parsley.

  4. To make the sauce, combine vinegar and flour in the pan to thicken.

  5. Serve the salmon very hot.

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 + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

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

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

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 and is cooked gently until flaky.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the fish as it bakes.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and balances the richness of the fat.
Flour
Thickens the pan liquids into a sauce as it is stirred in with the vinegar.

The step that matters

Covering the salmon tightly with a little water. A tight cover traps steam so the fish cooks gently and stays moist. Too little liquid or a loose cover can let the fish dry out before the centre is cooked through.

Swap the parsley

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

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

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