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Dressed Salmon, Italian Sauce

A baked salmon dish served with a sauce of stock, thyme, bay leaf, carrot, onion, roux, butter, mushrooms, parsley, and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,077 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Dressed Salmon, Italian Sauce

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the fish

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a baking dish, combine the chopped onions, sliced carrots, allspice, mace, and seasoning.

  3. Place the salmon slices on top of the vegetables and cover with buttered paper.

  4. Bake for 30 minutes.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, combine the stock, thyme, bay leaf, a piece of carrot, an onion, and roux; boil for 20 minutes and strain.

  2. In another saucepan, melt the butter and sauté the shallots for a few minutes.

  3. Add the chopped mushrooms and parsley, and simmer for a few minutes.

  4. Pour in the strained sauce, season to taste, and add soy sauce for color.

Serve

  1. Carefully lift the salmon onto a hot dish, ensuring no vegetables remain on top.

  2. Pour the boiling sauce over the salmon and squeeze lemon juice on top.

  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. Allspice + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,077 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Shallot + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,476 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Carrot + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Shallot + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Mushroom + thymetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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 becomes flaky and moist when gently baked.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the sauce and shallots.
Roux
Thickens the stock into a smooth sauce that coats the fish.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavor and a soft, meaty texture to the sauce.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich sauce and balances the butter.

The step that matters

Boiling the sauce after the roux is added. A roux thickens properly only when the liquid is brought to a boil and held there, so the starch swells fully. Boiling for the full time also reduces the stock and concentrates its flavor before straining.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, onion, carrot, allspice, shallot, mushroom, thyme):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Fennelfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, onion, carrot, allspice, shallot, mushroom, thyme. 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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