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Salmon and Caper Sauce

Salmon baked with butter, parsley, shallot, salt, pepper, and served with caper sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Salmon and Caper Sauce

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 the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Lay the salmon in a baking dish and place pieces of butter over it.

  3. Add the chopped parsley, minced shallot, salt, and pepper, rubbing some seasoning into the fish.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in the oven, basting frequently until cooked through.

  2. Remove from the oven and let drain for 1-2 minutes.

  3. Transfer to a serving dish and pour caper sauce over the salmon before serving.

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

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

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

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

  3. Shallot + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,898 recipes

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

  4. Shallot + saucetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,303 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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 protein and cooks through to a flaky texture.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture as it melts over the fish during baking.
Shallot
Adds a mild, sharp aromatic flavour that softens as it cooks.

The step that matters

Basting frequently while baking. Salmon dries out quickly in dry oven heat. Regular basting with melted butter and juices keeps the surface moist, and the fish should be removed as soon as it is cooked through so the flesh stays tender.

Swap the shallot

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

  1. Shallotthe original
  2. Chivefits about as well
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Carrotfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, parsley, pepper, butter, sauce. 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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