Name: Darne of Salmon
Ingredients: thick slice of salmon; parsley for garnish; sauce of choice (e.g., mayonnaise, Dutch sauce); lobster-coral (for decoration, optional); aspic jelly (for decoration, optional); small boiled lobster or large crayfish (optional); watercress or fine parsley (optional)

Why it works: Parsley and watercress match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 469 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Darne of Salmon

Ingredients

thick slice of salmon
parsley for garnish
sauce of choice (e.g., mayonnaise, Dutch sauce)
lobster-coral (for decoration, optional)
aspic jelly (for decoration, optional)
small boiled lobster or large crayfish (optional)
watercress or fine parsley (optional)

Directions

Wrap the thick slice of salmon in a cloth or place it on the drainer of a fish kettle.
Boil the salmon until cooked through.
Serve hot with a garnish of parsley and your choice of sauce.
Alternatively, cool the salmon and cover it with meat jelly or a thick cold sauce like mayonnaise.
For decoration, use a contrasting sauce and lay figures made from lobster-coral mixed with mayonnaise on top.
You can also decorate with small cubes cut from aspic jelly.
If shellfish is out of season, use a bunch of fine parsley or watercress instead.

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.

Parsley + watercresstop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together469 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Sauce + lobstertop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,095 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Salmon + lobstertop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together313 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
Salmon + watercresstop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together142 recipes

Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).
Sauce + watercresstop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together295 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

Swap the parsley

The recipe marks parsley as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, sauce, lobster, watercress):

Capersfits better
Tarragonfits better
Parsleythe original
Garlicfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, sauce, lobster, watercress. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.