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Baked Salmon, Trout or Pickerel

A baked fish served with a sauce of sweet cream, butter, parsley, and gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Baked Salmon, Trout or Pickerel

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and bake

  1. Clean the fish thoroughly and wipe it carefully.

  2. Place the fish in a dripping pan with enough water to prevent scorching.

  3. Bake slowly, basting often with butter and water.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. In a separate vessel, combine sweet cream with a few spoons of hot water.

  2. Stir in melted butter and chopped parsley, then heat in boiling water.

  3. Add the gravy from the dish and bring to a boil.

  4. Serve the fish on a hot dish and pour the sauce over it.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Salmon + creamtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,401 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Salmon + parsleytop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Sweet cream
Forms the body of the sauce and gives it a rich, smooth texture.
Butter
Adds fat for basting and richness to both the fish and the sauce.
Salmon
Is the main protein, cooked gently until it flakes.

The step that matters

Bake slowly, basting often. Slow baking with the fish kept moist by water in the pan cooks it gently so it stays tender rather than drying out. Regular basting with butter and water keeps the surface moist and adds flavour.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, butter, cream. 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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