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Salmon and Caper Sauce

Salmon baked in butter and seasonings, then served with caper sauce poured over it.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Salmon and Caper Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

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

  2. Lay the salmon in a baking dish and place pieces of butter over it.

  3. Add the chopped parsley, shallot, salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

  4. Rub some of the seasoning into the fish.

Bake and serve

  1. Baste the salmon frequently while it cooks.

  2. Once done, remove the salmon and let it drain for a minute or two.

  3. Transfer the salmon to a serving dish.

  4. Pour caper sauce over the salmon before serving.

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. Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Shallot + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,019 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Salmon
Forms the main protein that cooks through in the oven and carries the sauce.
Butter
Adds fat and moisture, helping the fish stay tender and carry the seasoning as it bakes.
Shallot
Adds a mild, savory onion-like aroma that flavors the fish as it bakes.

The step that matters

Basting the salmon frequently. Spooning the melted butter and juices over the fish keeps its surface moist while it bakes. Without basting, the exposed top can dry out before the center is cooked through.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, butter, parsley, shallot, pepper. 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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