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Water Souchet of Crimped Salmon

A fish dish where salmon slices are soaked, simmered with parsley, pepper, salt, and fish essence, served with consommé.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Water Souchet of Crimped Salmon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the salmon slices in cold spring water for 2 hours to firm them up.

Cook

  1. In a stewpan, combine the salmon, boiled parsley roots, their cooking water, parsley leaves, minionette pepper, and salt.

  2. Moisten with essence of fish made from salmon scraps or flounders.

  3. Boil briskly until the salmon is cooked, about 6 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve immediately, adding bright consommé if desired.

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

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

  2. Salmon + fishtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,078 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Parsley + fishtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,341 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + fishtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,948 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, 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

Fresh salmon
Forms the main body of the dish, cooked gently in liquid to stay moist and tender.
Essence of fish
Adds concentrated savoury fish flavour to the poaching liquid.
Shredded parsley roots
Contribute earthy, aromatic flavour to the cooking liquid.

The step that matters

Boil briskly until the salmon is cooked, about 6 minutes. Salmon proteins set and turn opaque as they heat; overcooking squeezes out moisture and leaves the flesh dry and grainy, so check it closely at the end of the time.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Capersfits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Dillfits about as well
  4. Gingerfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, pepper, fish. 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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