Name: Salmon in Escalops
Ingredients: salmon, cut into round slices, ⅛ inch thick; butter for frying

Why it works: Salmon and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,481 recipes. Both carry 2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, green. The science ↓

Salmon in Escalops

Ingredients

salmon, cut into round slices, ⅛ inch thick
butter for frying

Directions

Fry the salmon slices in butter until cooked.
Arrange the fried salmon tastefully on a dish, imitating a flight of stairs.
Serve immediately.

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.

Salmon + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,481 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Salmon: Forms the main protein, cooking to a firm, flaky texture as it sets.
Butter: Conducts heat for frying and adds richness and browning to the salmon surface.

“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.