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Salmon Steaks

Salmon steaks grilled over coals, served with anchovy, prawn, or lobster sauce and fried parsley garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Salmon and anchovy work together. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 535 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Salmon Steaks

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the salmon

  1. Remove the bone from the salmon without damaging the flesh.

  2. Cut the salmon into 1-inch thick fillets or steaks.

  3. Dry the salmon lightly with a cloth.

  4. Dredge the salmon with flour without pressing.

Grill

  1. Prepare a clean grill and rub it with chalk to prevent sticking.

  2. Broil the salmon over bright coals, turning with steak tongs until thoroughly cooked.

  3. Serve hot, wrapped in a heated napkin, with sauce on the side.

Wrap and broil

  1. Butter pieces of white paper.

  2. Wrap each salmon slice.

  3. Secure the wrapped salmon with string.

  4. Broil the wrapped salmon over a moderate fire until done.

  5. Remove the paper.

  6. Garnish with fried parsley.

  7. Serve with sauce.

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. Salmon + anchovytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together535 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Flour + buttertop 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 + anchovytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,697 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Parsley + anchovytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,702 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

Flour and butter 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, and its flesh cooks to firm, flaky texture over heat.
Flour
Dry coating on the salmon that helps the surface brown and hold moisture during broiling.

The step that matters

Broil the wrapped salmon over a moderate fire until done. Fish is cooked when the flesh turns opaque and flakes easily. Overcooking dries it out quickly, so check the thickest part early and avoid high heat that could scorch the paper.

Swap the parsley

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, flour, butter, anchovy. 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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