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Broiled Salmon

Broiled salmon seasoned with cayenne pepper, sea salt, lemon juice, and salad oil, wrapped in buttered paper and grilled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Broiled Salmon

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Sprinkle the salmon slices with cayenne pepper, coarse sea salt, lemon juice, and salad oil 30 minutes before cooking.

  2. Grease the grill with a piece of pork fat.

  3. Wrap the fish in buttered paper to prevent burning.

  4. Serve with a suitable sauce for fish.

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

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

  2. Butter + porktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,933 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

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

  4. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + porktop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,121 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Slices of salmon
Forms the main body of the dish, cooked by direct heat until opaque and flaky.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich flavour of the fish.
Salad oil
Adds moisture to the surface and helps guard against drying under heat.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the paper shield the fish while it cooks.
Pork fat
Lubricates the grill so the fish does not stick and adds a little savoury fat.

The step that matters

Wrapping the fish in buttered paper. Paper shields the surface from direct heat, so the fish cooks through without scorching. Butter keeps the paper from sticking and adds moisture, so the flesh stays tender rather than drying out.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Avocadofits about as well
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Mangofits about as well
  4. Coconutfits less well

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