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Grenadins De Saumon a LA Rouennaise

A Rouen-style salmon dish served with mussels, fish quenelles, crayfish, and a creamy sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 21 ingredients
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Why it works: White wine and red wine share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 96 recipes mention both. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: egg, milk, wheat, fish, shellfish (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the salmon

  1. Split the salmon down the center, remove the skin and bone, and cut into 8 nice lengthwise slices.

  2. Flatten the slices slightly and lard one side with strips of gherkin or fat bacon.

  3. Place the salmon in a buttered sauté pan.

  4. Season the salmon with salt and pepper.

Cook the salmon

  1. Add the white wine and a little mussel liquor.

  2. Cover with buttered paper and cook in a 350°F (175°C) oven until done.

Make the sauce

  1. In a separate pot, combine fish bones, skin, parings, salt, pepper, nutmeg, onion, parsley, bay leaf, thyme, red wine, and ½ pint of water.

  2. Cover and simmer for 30 minutes.

  3. In another pan, cook 1 ounce of flour in 1 ounce of butter.

  4. Stir in the strained fish stock and boil for a few minutes.

  5. Add the egg yolks and lemon juice, stirring over heat to bind the eggs.

  6. Strain through a tammy.

  7. Finish with 1 tablespoon of cream.

Add the mussels

  1. In a separate pan, melt ½ ounce of butter with a sprig of parsley and half a sliced onion.

  2. Add the cleaned mussels.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. White wine + red winetop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together96 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Red wine + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together749 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. White wine + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together1,495 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  5. Salmon + fishtop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together1,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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 dish; gentle oven cooking keeps the flesh moist and flaky.
Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce as they heat and set, binding it into a smooth, rich texture.
Flour
Cooked with butter to form a roux that thickens the fish stock into a sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the sauce and the pan cooking.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma to the cooking liquid around the salmon.
Cream
Adds smoothness and richness to the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Binding the sauce with egg yolks. Egg yolks thicken as their proteins set with heat, but if the sauce gets too hot or is boiled after adding them, the yolks can scramble and curdle. Stir over gentle heat only until the sauce coats a spoon.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, fish, crayfish, white wine, red wine, parsley, thyme):

  1. Tomatobetter flavor fit
  2. Shallotbetter flavor fit
  3. Potatobetter flavor fit
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, fish, crayfish, white wine, red wine, parsley, thyme. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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