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Baked Salmon

A whole salmon baked with pepper, salt, and bread stuffing, served with a lemon-butter gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 887 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Baked Salmon

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the fish

  1. Rub the salmon inside and out with pepper and salt.

  2. Stuff the fish with buttered bread slices moistened with hot milk or water, adding sage or thyme if desired.

  3. Tie a thread around the fish to keep the stuffing in, then remove it before serving.

  4. Place muffin rings or a trivet in a dripping pan and lay the fish on top.

  5. Dot the fish with butter and sprinkle with flour.

  6. Add 1 pint of hot water to the pan for basting.

Bake and baste

  1. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 1 hour, basting frequently.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. After removing the fish, fry the lemon slices in the pan.

  2. Dredge the lemon slices in 1 teaspoon of flour and add a small bit of butter, stirring until browned.

  3. Add boiling water to the pan, stir until smooth, and strain the gravy into a serving boat.

  4. Serve the fish with boiled potatoes.

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. Sage + lemontop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together887 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Pepper + sagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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, cooked gently by oven heat and basting.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps the surface brown during baking and frying.
All-purpose flour
Dusted on the fish and used in the gravy to thicken the pan juices.
Bread
Buttered and moistened, it makes a soft stuffing that absorbs juices inside the fish.
Lemon
Its sliced fruit is fried in the pan, adding acidity and browned flavour to the gravy.

The step that matters

Basting frequently during the hour of baking. Regular basting with the pan liquid keeps the surface moist while the heat cooks the fish through, helping prevent it from drying out.

Swap the sage

The recipe marks sage as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, pepper, bread, milk, butter, flour, lemon):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Marjoramfits about as well
  4. Sagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, pepper, bread, milk, butter, flour, lemon. 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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