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A Souties of Salmon and Capers

Thin slices of salmon sautéed with shallots, thyme, parsley, mushrooms, pepper, salt, white wine or fish stock, and capers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

A Souties of Salmon and Capers

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pan

  1. Butter a sauté pan and sprinkle it with shallots, thyme, parsley, mushrooms, pepper, and salt.

  2. Heat the pan on the stove for about five minutes.

Cook the salmon

  1. After two minutes, turn the salmon slices and cook for an additional three minutes.

  2. Remove the salmon and arrange it around the dish.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Scrape the herbs into a saucepan, add the white wine or fish stock and capers.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil and pour it into the center of the dish with the salmon.

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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  3. Shallot + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,476 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

  5. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 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
Provides the main protein, which firms and turns opaque as it cooks.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the shallots and herbs cook gently without sticking.
Shallots
Add mild onion-like sweetness and aroma to the pan base.
White wine or fish stock
Adds acidity and liquid that carries the herb flavours into the sauce.
Capers
Add sharp, salty acidity that cuts through the richness of the fish and butter.

The step that matters

Turning the salmon slices. Salmon is thin and cooks quickly, so turning it at the stated two minutes matters. Turning too early can tear the delicate flesh, and leaving it too long dries the fish and makes it flake apart.

“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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