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Grilled Salmon

A grilled salmon fillet seasoned with oil, salt, bay leaf, parsley, scallions, and served with butter sauce and capers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and capers match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,550 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Grilled Salmon

Ingredients

Directions

Marinate

  1. Place the salmon in a dish and pour the oil over it.

  2. Sprinkle the salmon with salt, bay leaf, parsley, and scallions, then turn the salmon to coat and let it soak for some time.

Grill

  1. Preheat the grill and place the salmon on it.

  2. Turn the salmon and baste it with the seasoning occasionally.

  3. Check the thickest part of the salmon; if still red, continue cooking.

  4. Once cooked, turn the salmon onto a plate.

  5. Remove the skin from the salmon.

Serve

  1. Pour butter sauce over the salmon.

  2. Sprinkle capers over the salmon before serving.

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 + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,550 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Sauce + caperstop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together678 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Salmon + caperstop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together458 recipes

    Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).

  4. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Parsley + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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
Is the main protein; its flesh cooks and firms as the heat sets the proteins.
Good oil
Carries the seasoning over the fish and keeps the surface from drying out on the grill.
Fine salt
Seasons the flesh and helps it hold moisture while it soaks.
Scallions
Add mild onion aroma that infuses the oil and seasoning during the soak.

The step that matters

Checking the thickest part. Salmon goes from translucent to opaque as it cooks, and the thickest section lags behind the thin edges. Checking there prevents undercooking while the thin parts risk drying out.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Tarragonfits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Dillfits less well
  4. Garlicfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, butter, sauce, capers. 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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