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Stewed Salmon

A salmon stew with white wine, carrots, onions, mushrooms, herbs, and a homemade mayonnaise sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: White wine and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,765 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity. The science ↓

Stewed Salmon

Ingredients

Directions

Stew the salmon

  1. In a stew pan, combine the white wine, sliced carrots, onions, mushrooms, pepper, salt, mace, and chopped sweet herbs.

  2. Add the piece of fresh salmon and pour more wine over it.

  3. Stew slowly for an hour or more.

Make the mayonnaise

  1. To make the sauce Mayonnaise, mix the beaten egg yolks, a little salt, Cayenne pepper, and a small amount of vinegar in a small bowl.

  2. Gradually add the sweet oil drop by drop while stirring continuously for about 15 minutes.

  3. Once well mixed, gradually stir in more vinegar to taste.

  4. For a green color, add a little juice of spinach or some chopped parsley or tarragon at the beginning.

Serve

  1. Serve with the sauce from the pan and some sauce Mayonnaise on the side.

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. White wine + mushroomtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,765 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

  2. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Carrot + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,796 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Emulsify the oil and vinegar to form a thick, smooth mayonnaise sauce.
Sweet oil
Provides fat that, emulsified with the yolks, gives the mayonnaise its rich texture.
White wine
Adds moisture and acidity to the stew liquid, flavouring the salmon as it cooks.
Salmon
Main protein, cooked gently by slow stewing until tender.
Carrots
Add sweetness and body to the stewing liquid.
Onions
Add aromatic flavour to the stewing liquid.

The step that matters

Adding the oil to the egg yolks. Oil must be added drop by drop while stirring so the yolk lecithin can emulsify it; adding it too fast breaks the mixture into separated oil and a runny sauce.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (white wine, carrot, onion, mushroom, pepper, salmon, egg):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against white wine, carrot, onion, mushroom, pepper, salmon, egg. 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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