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Salmon and Green Peas

A salmon stew with green peas, cucumber, herbs, and a citrusy sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper 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 ↓

Salmon and Green Peas

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Cut the salmon into three thick steaks and then divide each steak into four pieces.

  2. Place the salmon pieces in an enamelled saucepan with the spring onion, parsley, mint, bay leaf, and green peas.

  3. Layer the cucumber slices on top.

Stew

  1. Season with cayenne and salt, then add water, white wine, lemon juice, vinegar, and sugar.

  2. Stew gently for 45 minutes.

  3. Remove the onion, herbs, and bay leaf.

Serve

  1. Serve the fish on a dish, garnished with peas and cucumber, and pour the sauce over.

  2. Serve very hot with new potatoes.

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 + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Mint + peastop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,137 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Mint + cucumbertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together884 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Peas + cucumbertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together629 recipes

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

  5. Parsley + minttop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,198 recipes

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

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 flakes into tender pieces as it stews.
Green peas
Add sweetness and a fresh, tender texture to the stew and garnish.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma to the cooking liquid, balancing the richness of the fish.
Lemon juice
Adds bright acidity that lifts the flavour of the sauce.
Cucumber
Adds cool, crisp freshness as a layer and garnish.

The step that matters

Stew gently for 45 minutes. Gentle heat keeps the salmon moist and tender. Vigorous boiling toughens the proteins and breaks the fish apart, so the liquid should only simmer.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, parsley, mint, peas, cucumber, pepper, white wine):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Lettucefits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, parsley, mint, peas, cucumber, pepper, white wine. 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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