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Broiled Salmon

Salmon fillets seasoned with salt and pepper, broiled with butter until flaky.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Salmon and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,481 recipes. Both carry 2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, green. The science ↓

Broiled Salmon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Preheat the broiler.

  2. Season the salmon fillets with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

Broil and serve

  1. Place the salmon on a broiler pan and dot with butter.

  2. Broil for 6-8 minutes, or until the fish flakes easily with a fork.

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

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

  2. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Salmon + peppertop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,446 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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 as its proteins set.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, helping the surface brown and keeping the fish from drying out.

The step that matters

Broil until the fish just flakes. Salmon dries out quickly under intense heat, and proteins toughen once overcooked. Checking for flakes with a fork, rather than relying only on time, helps keep the flesh moist and tender.

“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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