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Fricassee Salmon

A salmon stew with tomatoes, mustard, vinegar, and sherry, simmered until tender.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 859 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Fricassee Salmon

Ingredients

Directions

Make the fricassee

  1. In a stewpan, combine salmon pieces, water, salt, white pepper, clove, mace, sugar, shallot, mustard, and vinegar.

  2. Bring to a boil, then add tomatoes, parsley, and sherry.

  3. Reduce heat and let simmer gently for 45 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve hot, garnished with triangular pieces of dry toast.

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. Shallot + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together859 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Clove + shallottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,677 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Clove + mustardtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,829 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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, becoming tender and flaky as it simmers.
Tomatoes
Add moisture and acidity, helping form a light sauce around the fish.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that brightens the sauce and balances the sweetness.
Sherry
Adds aromatic depth and a subtle sweetness to the sauce.
Mustard
Contributes a sharp, pungent note that complements the fish and vinegar.

The step that matters

Simmer gently for 45 minutes. A gentle simmer cooks the salmon through while keeping its flakes intact. A hard boil toughens fish protein and breaks the pieces apart, so the heat must stay low once the dish is simmering.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, clove, mace, sugar, shallot, mustard, vinegar):

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, clove, mace, sugar, shallot, mustard, vinegar. 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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