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Spiced Salmon

A baked salmon dish flavored with onion, lemon, allspice, cloves, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Spiced Salmon

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat your oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. Cut the salmon into serving pieces and season with salt, red pepper, and black pepper.

Layer and bake

  1. In a dish, layer half of the chopped onion and lemon, followed by the salmon.

  2. Sprinkle with allspice and cloves, then add the remaining onion and lemon on top.

  3. Cover the fish with vinegar, ensuring it is not too strong.

  4. Cover the dish with brown paper and bake for 2 hours.

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 + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Lemon + allspicetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,083 recipes

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

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 tender during slow baking.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the fish a sharp, tangy flavor.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and moisture that flavors the fish as it bakes.
Lemon
Adds acidity and bright citrus aroma that balances the rich fish.

The step that matters

Cover the fish with vinegar, ensuring it is not too strong.. Vinegar is acidic, so too much can make the fish taste harsh and can firm its surface. A milder vinegar level keeps the flesh tender and the flavor balanced during the long, slow bake.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, lemon, pepper, allspice, clove, vinegar):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, lemon, pepper, allspice, clove, vinegar. 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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