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Salmon Cutlets

Salmon cutlets made from minced salmon, egg, breadcrumbs, and seasonings, pan‑fried until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Salmon Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the salmon

  1. Remove skin and bones from the salmon, then mince and pound it smooth in a mortar with pepper or cayenne and salt.

  2. Beat the egg, then form the salmon into small cutlets.

Coat and fry

  1. Dip each cutlet in the egg, then coat with breadcrumbs.

  2. Fry the cutlets in butter until golden brown.

  3. If greasy, place on blotting paper before serving.

Serve

  1. Serve on a white paper or napkin, garnished with lemon and parsley, with tartar sauce on the side.

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 + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Salmon + eggtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,485 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Salmon
Forms the main body of the cutlets and provides the flavour and protein structure.
Egg
Binds the salmon and creates a coating that helps breadcrumbs stick.
Breadcrumbs
Form a crisp, golden crust when fried in butter.
Butter
Conducts heat for frying and adds browning and rich flavour to the crust.

The step that matters

Fry the cutlets in butter until golden brown. Medium heat lets the crust brown before the delicate, already-cooked salmon dries out. Too high a heat burns the butter and breadcrumbs before the centre warms through.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Dillfits about as well
  3. Capersfits about as well
  4. Nutmegfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, egg, butter, pepper. 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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