Skip to main content
Main

Salmon, Stewed

A salmon stew made with carrots, herbs, stock, and a buttery sauce.

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

Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Salmon, Stewed

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Place salmon trimmings in a stewpan with carrots, celery salt, savory herbs, parsley, shallots, stock, hock, salt, and pepper.

  2. Simmer for 45 minutes, then strain the mixture.

Cook the fish

  1. In a clean stewpan, melt butter and fry the salmon fillets for 8 minutes.

  2. Add the strained stock to the fish and let it boil slowly for 5 minutes.

  3. Stir in cayenne pepper and lemon juice.

Finish and serve

  1. Arrange the fillets on a dish.

  2. Thicken the stock.

  3. Pour the stock over the fish and serve.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  2. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  4. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Salmon fillets
Form the main protein, which firms and turns opaque as it cooks.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps the fillets brown lightly in the pan.
Shallots
Add a mild, savoury aroma that builds the flavour of the stock.
Carrots
Add gentle sweetness and body to the stock.
Hock (or white wine)
Adds acidity and aroma to the stock as it simmers.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the stock and balances the rich fish.

The step that matters

Let the stock boil slowly after adding it to the fish. A gentle simmer cooks the fish evenly and keeps the flesh moist and tender. A hard, rapid boil can break up the fillets and toughen the protein.

Swap the shallot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, carrot, celery, parsley, white wine, pepper, butter):

  1. Leekfits about as well
  2. Parsnipfits about as well
  3. Potatofits about as well
  4. Shallotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, carrot, celery, parsley, white wine, pepper, butter. 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

Lemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesSalmon SaladSalmon Salad155 recipesCarrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesSalmon CroquettesSalmon Croquettes129 recipes