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Salmon À LA Genevoise

Salmon à la Genevoise is a salmon dish simmered in wine and bouillon with mushrooms, shallots, and herbs, finished with a butter‑flour gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,331 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Salmon À LA Genevoise

Ingredients

Directions

Poach the salmon

  1. Boil the salmon in equal parts red wine and bouillon.

  2. Add mushrooms, shallots, parsley, salt, allspice, and nutmeg.

  3. Remove the salmon from the pot and keep it warm.

Make the gravy

  1. In the gravy, mix butter and flour.

  2. Pass the mixture through a sieve.

  3. Return the gravy to the heat and boil rapidly, stirring until thickened.

Serve

  1. Pour the thickened gravy 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. Allspice + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Parsley + allspicetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,289 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Mushroom + shallottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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, cooked gently in the wine and bouillon liquid.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavour into the gravy.
Flour
Thickens the gravy as it cooks, giving it body and a smooth texture.
Red wine
Adds acidity and depth to the poaching liquid that flavours the gravy.
Shallots
Add a mild sweetness and aromatic base to the poaching liquid.

The step that matters

Boil the gravy rapidly while stirring until thickened. Flour must be cooked long enough at a boil to swell and set the sauce; undercooked flour leaves a raw, pasty taste and a thin texture. Constant stirring prevents lumps from forming.

Swap the allspice

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, red wine, mushroom, shallot, parsley, nutmeg, butter):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, red wine, mushroom, shallot, parsley, nutmeg, butter. 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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