Skip to main content
Main

Salmon, Fillets Of, Stewed

Stewed salmon fillets simmered in a butter‑flour sauce with parsley, fennel, thyme, sherry, and egg yolks, garnished with fried sippets.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Salmon, Fillets Of, Stewed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Trim the salmon into neat fillets and dry them.

  2. Dip the fillets in flour and partially fry them, then place them on a sieve to drain.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, dissolve the butter and mix in 1 tablespoon of flour.

  2. Add the chopped parsley, chopped fennel, thyme, salt, and pepper, stirring over heat for 4-5 minutes.

  3. Pour in the sherry and add the half‑fried fillets, letting them simmer gently for 10 minutes.

  4. Lift the fish out with a slotted spoon and place it on a hot dish.

  5. Let the sauce cool for 2 minutes, then stir in the beaten egg yolks.

  6. Whisk the sauce over heat for 1 minute until it thickens, then pour it over the fish.

Garnish and serve

  1. Garnish with fried sippets.

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 + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Fennel + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together337 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Parsley + fenneltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together625 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

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

  5. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Salmon fillets
Provide the main protein, which firms and flakes as it cooks.
Butter
Enriches the sauce with fat, adding richness and a smooth mouthfeel.
Flour
Thickens the sauce and gives the coating a light, golden crust when fried.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the sauce when gently heated, giving it body.
Sherry
Adds acidity and depth of flavour to the simmering sauce.

The step that matters

Stirring in the egg yolks. Egg yolks thicken by gentle heat. If the sauce is too hot when they go in, or whisked too long at a boil, the yolks can scramble and turn grainy, so cool the sauce slightly first and keep the heat low.

Swap the fennel

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

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Sagefits about as well
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Fennelthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, flour, butter, parsley, thyme, pepper, sherry. 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.

You might also like

Salmon SaladSalmon Salad155 recipesSalmon CroquettesSalmon Croquettes129 recipesCanned SalmonCanned Salmon14 recipesSmoked SalmonSmoked Salmon14 recipes