Skip to main content
Main

Another Way of Dressing Salmon

A baked salmon finished with butter, bread shapes, and grated Parmesan.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Another Way of Dressing Salmon

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the fish

  1. Boil the salmon in salted water until cooked.

  2. Remove the small bones from the back of the fish.

  3. In a stewpan, heat butter or dripping without boiling.

  4. Place the fish in the stewpan and heat it through.

Coat and bake

  1. Cut bread into shapes and surround the fish with it.

  2. Grate Parmesan cheese over the fish.

  3. Brush melted butter over the fish with a large brush.

  4. Place the fish in a 400°F (200°C) oven until it is golden brown.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Butter + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Bread + parmesan cheesetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together577 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Salmon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,481 recipes

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

  5. Salmon + parmesan cheesetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together231 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Salmon
The main protein, which turns flaky and opaque as it cooks through.
Parmesan cheese
Melts and browns in the oven, adding savoury flavour and a golden crust.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavour and helps the coating brown.
Bread
Forms a shaped coating around the fish that crisps and browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Heat the butter or dripping without boiling. Butter boiling at high heat can scorch its milk solids and separate the fat, giving a bitter taste and a greasy coating. Gentle heat keeps the fat clean and ready to coat the fish evenly.

“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.

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesSalmon SaladSalmon Salad155 recipesSalmon CroquettesSalmon Croquettes129 recipesMacaroni and CheeseMacaroni and Cheese102 recipes