Name: To Broil Salmon, or Salmon Steaks
Ingredients: salmon fillets; flour; butter

Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

To Broil Salmon, or Salmon Steaks

Ingredients

salmon fillets
flour
butter

Directions

Prepare

Cut slices from the thick part of the salmon and clean and scale them.
Dry the salmon slices and dust them with flour.

Cook and serve

Broil the salmon on a grill over a clear fire.
When ready, rub the salmon with butter and serve hot with sauces for boiled 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.

Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Salmon + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,481 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
Salmon + flourtop 27% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,776 recipes

Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Salmon fillets: Forms the main body of the dish and is cooked by direct heat from the grill.
Flour: Dust on the dried slices that helps the surface brown and keeps moisture in.
Butter: Rubbed on after broiling to add richness and a glossy finish.

“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.