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Baked Salmon

Whole salmon baked with bread stuffing, butter, and herbs, served with a lemon‑flavored gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 887 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Baked Salmon

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the fish

  1. Clean the fish, rinse it, and wipe it dry.

  2. Rub the outside and inside with a mixture of salt and pepper.

  3. Fill the fish with stuffing made of buttered bread moistened with hot milk or water; add sage or thyme if desired.

  4. Tie the fish with thread to keep the stuffing in.

Bake

  1. Place muffin rings or a trivet in a dripping pan and put the fish on top.

  2. Dredge flour over the fish and place bits of butter on it.

  3. Add 1 pint of hot water to the pan for basting.

  4. Bake in a preheated oven at 400 °F (200 °C) for one hour, basting frequently.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. After removing the fish, slice a lemon thinly and fry the slices in the pan.

  2. Dredge in 1 teaspoon of flour, add a small bit of butter, and stir until browned without burning.

  3. Add boiling water to the pan, stir until smooth, strain the gravy, and serve with the fish.

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. Sage + lemontop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together887 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Pepper + sagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Milk + wheattop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  5. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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 is cooked whole, so it stays moist inside its skin.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and helps the surface brown during baking and in the gravy.
Slices of bread
Make the stuffing that fills the fish, adding body and absorbing its juices.
Wheat flour
Thickens the pan juices into a smooth gravy when browned with butter.
Lemon
Adds acidity and a fried, tangy flavor to the gravy and serving.

The step that matters

Basting the fish during the one-hour bake. Frequent basting with the pan liquid keeps the surface from drying out while the fish cooks through, so the flesh stays moist and the juices remain available for the gravy.

Swap the sage

The recipe marks sage as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, pepper, bread, butter, milk, lemon, wheat):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Cinnamonfits about as well
  4. Sagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, pepper, bread, butter, milk, lemon, wheat. 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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