Name: Salmon Baked in Slices
Ingredients: Salmon fillets, sliced; Cayenne pepper, to taste; Coarse sea salt, to taste; 2 ounces butter, rolled in flour; ½ cup water; ⅓ cup port wine; 2 tablespoons ketchup; 2 tablespoons soy sauce; Juice of 1 large lemon (optional)

Why it works: Ketchup and sauce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,099 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Salmon Baked in Slices

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the salmon

Remove the bones from the salmon and cut the flesh into slices.
Season the slices with cayenne pepper and coarse sea salt.

Make the sauce

Melt the butter in the water, then mix in the port wine, ketchup, and soy sauce.
Add lemon juice if desired and mix well.
Strain the mixture and pour it over the salmon slices.

Bake

Cover the dish with buttered paper and bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven.

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.

Ketchup + saucetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,099 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter + port winetop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,499 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Flour + ketchuptop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,435 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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 fillets: Forms the main body of the dish, cooking to a flaky texture under the sauce.
Butter: Adds richness and fat, and with flour helps thicken the sauce.
Port wine: Adds sweetness and depth of flavour to the sauce.
Ketchup: Contributes sweetness, acidity and colour to the sauce.
Soy sauce: Adds savoury saltiness and umami to the sauce.

The step that matters

Covering the dish with buttered paper before baking. The cover traps moisture and gentle heat around the salmon, so the flesh cooks through without drying out while the sauce stays loose and coats the slices.

“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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Salmon Baked in Slices