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Salmon Steaks or Cutlets

A pan‑fried salmon steak coated in egg and cracker crumbs, seasoned with cayenne and sea salt, garnished with parsley.

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 ↓

Salmon Steaks or Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Heat 1 tablespoon of butter in a frying pan for each slice of salmon.

  2. Beat the eggs until very light.

  3. In a separate plate, mix cracker crumbs with a little cayenne pepper.

  4. Wipe the salmon slices dry and sprinkle with coarse sea salt.

Coat and fry

  1. Dip each slice in the beaten egg, then coat with the cracker crumbs.

  2. Fry the salmon quickly until golden brown.

Serve

  1. Drain excess grease and place on a hot platter lined with clean paper.

  2. Garnish with parsley and serve immediately.

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

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

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

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

  4. Salmon + eggtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,485 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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 cutlet, cooked through while the coating turns crisp.
Eggs
Bind the cracker crumbs to the salmon so the coating stays on during frying.
Cracker crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating that browns in the hot butter.
Butter
Conducts heat in the pan and adds richness and browning to the coating.

The step that matters

Fry the salmon quickly until golden brown. High heat in hot butter browns the coated crumbs fast, while the fish cooks through before it dries out. Overcooking makes salmon dry and firm, so timing matters.

Swap the parsley

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

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

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