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Slice of Salmon Baked

A slice of salmon baked with a mixture of salad oil, parsley, gherkin, shallot, anchovy, and cayenne sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Slice of Salmon Baked

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mix salad oil, parsley, gherkin, shallot, anchovy, and cayenne sauce together.

  2. Rub the mixture over both sides of the slice of salmon.

Bake and serve

  1. Wrap the salmon in buttered paper.

  2. Bake for about 30 minutes.

  3. Serve in the paper.

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. Anchovy + saucetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Anchovy + salmontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together535 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Parsley + anchovytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,702 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Shallot + saucetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,303 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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, cooking to a moist, flaky texture.
Anchovy
Adds a savoury, salty depth that enriches the flavour of the fish.
Salad oil
Carries the seasonings over the fish and helps keep it moist as it bakes.
Gherkin
Adds acidity and a sharp, tangy contrast to the rich fish.
Shallot
Contributes a mild, aromatic onion flavour that mellows during baking.

The step that matters

Wrapping the salmon in buttered paper. The paper must be sealed well so steam stays around the fish; a loose wrap lets moisture escape and the salmon can dry out during baking.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (shallot, anchovy, sauce, salmon):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Garlicfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against shallot, anchovy, sauce, salmon. 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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