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Salmon Fillets

Salmon fillets are larded, broiled, and served with a cream and oyster sauce, accompanied by French potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Salmon Fillets

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the salmon

  1. Cut the salmon down the back and remove the fillets.

  2. Lard the fillets with thin strips of lard using a larding needle.

  3. Broil the fillets on a gridiron, adding butter, pepper, and coarse sea salt while broiling.

Make the oyster sauce

  1. Drain the oysters.

  2. Fricassee the oysters.

  3. In a saucepan, combine cream, flour, butter, and a pinch of mace to make a sauce.

  4. Add the oysters to the sauce.

  5. Bring the sauce to a boil.

  6. Pour in the wine.

  7. Stir the sauce.

Boil the potatoes and serve

  1. Boil the French potatoes in lard.

  2. Season the potatoes to taste.

  3. Arrange the salmon fillets on a dish, overlapping the ends.

  4. Pour the oyster sauce in the center of the fillets.

  5. Place four piles of potatoes around the dish.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Salmon + oystertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together672 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + oystertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

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

  5. Butter + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Salmon
Forms the main body of the dish, cooked by broiling until flaky.
Lard
Adds fat that keeps the fillets moist and rich while they cook.
Oysters
Supply a briny, savoury flavour to the sauce.
Cream
Gives the sauce a smooth, rich body and mellows its flavour.
Flour
Thickens the cream into a stable sauce.
Wine
Adds acidity that brightens the rich cream sauce.

The step that matters

Bring the sauce to a boil. Cream-based sauces thickened with flour can scorch or split if they boil too hard or too long. Gentle heat and steady stirring keep the sauce smooth before the wine is added.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, butter, pepper, oyster, cream, flour, wine. 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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