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Fricandeau of Salmon

A salmon dish cooked with anchovy, eel, oyster or bacon, cream, butter, garlic, mace, salt, parsley or fennel, and wine or stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,400 recipes. Both carry methyleugenol, which smells clove, spice. The science ↓

Fricandeau of Salmon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Lard the salmon with anchovy, eel, oyster, or bacon.

  2. Arrange it on a spit and baste with cream and butter seasoned with bruised garlic, mace, and salt.

Cook

  1. When it swells, baste with a mixture of butter and flour and finely chopped parsley or fennel until it takes on a shiny greenish tint.

Finish and serve

  1. Strain the sauce and adjust to taste.

  2. Serve the salmon on spinach or with an appropriate sauce.

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 + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  2. Anchovy + oystertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together603 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Salmon + oystertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together672 recipes

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

  5. Clove + garlictop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,368 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Salmon
The main protein, cooked whole and basted to stay moist and tender.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and helps the basting liquid coat and brown the surface.
Cream
Adds moisture and body to the basting liquid and the sauce.
Anchovy
Adds savoury depth, and melts into the fish as it cooks.
Flour (in the method)
Thickens the butter basting mixture so it clings to the salmon and forms a sauce.

The step that matters

Basting while the salmon swells. Basting with butter and flour must be timed to the fish swelling and taking on its tint. Too early, the mixture runs off; too late, the surface can scorch before the fish is cooked through.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, anchovy, oyster, cream, butter, clove, garlic):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, anchovy, oyster, cream, butter, clove, garlic. 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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