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Salmon Cutlets, a LA Maintenon

Salmon cutlets sautéed with clarified butter, seasoned with pepper, salt, nutmeg, mushrooms, truffles, parsley, shallots, and served with Allemande sauce, glaze, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 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 Cutlets, a LA Maintenon

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cutlets

  1. Trim the salmon into fillets and place them in a pan with clarified butter.

  2. Season with pepper, salt, nutmeg, mushrooms, truffles, parsley, and shallots.

  3. Fry over medium heat for five minutes.

  4. Add Allemande sauce, glaze, and lemon juice, then simmer for two more minutes.

Wrap and cook

  1. Cut note paper into heart shapes, oil them, and place one under each cutlet.

  2. Divide the sauce among the cutlets and fold the paper edges to seal the sauce inside.

  3. Broil the cutlets on a clean grill over moderate heat until cooked.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  4. Mushroom + shallottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

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

  5. Mushroom + truffletop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,900 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Salmon fillets
Forms the main body of the dish and cooks to a flaky texture.
Clarified butter
Fat that cooks the fish and browns it without milk solids burning.
Chopped mushrooms
Add moisture and savory depth to the sauce around the fish.
Truffles
Contribute a strong, earthy aroma that defines the dish.
Allemande sauce
Adds richness and a creamy coating that keeps the fish moist.
Shallots
Release mild onion-like sweetness and aroma during frying.

The step that matters

Broiling the cutlets until cooked. Salmon is lean and dries out quickly under direct high heat, so it should be removed as soon as it turns opaque and flakes easily. The sealed paper helps trap steam, but overcooking still leaves the fish dry and firm.

Swap the nutmeg

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

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

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