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Hot Canned Salmon

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Hot Canned Salmon

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Set the can of salmon in a dish of boiling water.

  2. When hot, pour off the oil and place the salmon in a hot dish.

  3. Pour over equal parts of butter and vinegar boiled together.

  4. Add fresh cut parsley to the dish.

  5. In a saucepan, combine ½ cup butter and 2 teaspoons flour, rubbing them well together.

  6. Add 1 cup water and cover the saucepan.

  7. Set the saucepan in a vessel of boiling water and season with coarse sea salt and pepper.

  8. Do not let it boil; when thoroughly mixed, remove from heat.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Salmon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Capersfits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Turmericfits about as well
  4. Nutmegfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, butter, flour, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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