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Fried Salmon

A dish of salmon slices fried in butter or oil, optionally coated with egg and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Fried Salmon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the salmon into slices ½ inch thick.

  2. Shake flour over the salmon slices.

  3. Alternatively, dip in egg and coat with breadcrumbs before frying.

Fry

  1. Fry the slices in butter or sweet oil.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  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).

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, cooking through as the slices fry.
Flour
Dries the surface of the fish so it browns and crisps well.
Butter or sweet oil
Conducts heat to brown the coating and adds rich flavour.
Egg
Acts as a binder so the breadcrumbs stick to the fish.
Breadcrumbs
Form a crisp, golden outer crust when fried.

The step that matters

Fry the slices in butter or sweet oil. The fat must be hot enough to brown and crisp the coating quickly. If it is too cool, the flour or breadcrumbs absorb oil and turn greasy, and the salmon steams and can stick to the pan.

“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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