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Ragout of Salmon

A baked salmon ragout with oysters, capers, browned flour, mushrooms, and lemon garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Ragout of Salmon

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Cut the salmon into slices or leave as a shoulder and place in a dish.

  3. Add wine or grape juice, salt, herbs, pepper, cloves, nutmeg, bay leaf, lemon slice, and stock.

Bake and serve

  1. Cover with another dish and bake until cooked through.

  2. Prepare a ragout by combining oysters, capers, browned flour, and mushrooms.

  3. Pour the ragout over the salmon when serving.

  4. Garnish with additional slices of lemon.

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. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Pepper + lemontop 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. Lemon + caperstop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,222 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 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 as it bakes.
Browned flour
Thickens the ragout's liquid and adds a toasted, nutty flavour.
Oysters
Add a briny, savoury flavour to the ragout.
Mushrooms
Add earthy savour and moisture to the ragout.
Capers
Add sharp acidity that cuts through the richness of the fish.
Wine or grape juice
Adds acidity and moisture that gently steams the salmon as it bakes.

The step that matters

Bake until cooked through. Covering the salmon with a second dish traps steam so it cooks gently and stays moist. Overbaking squeezes out moisture and leaves the flesh dry and firm, so check for flakiness rather than relying on the clock alone.

Swap the capers

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, wine, pepper, clove, nutmeg, lemon, oyster):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Capersthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, wine, pepper, clove, nutmeg, lemon, oyster. 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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