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Frejh Salmon

Broiled salmon fillets served with a sauce of anchovies, leek, capers, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Leek and capers share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Frejh Salmon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the salmon

  1. Cut fresh salmon into fillets and wipe them clean and dry.

  2. Melt butter in a pan, add a little flour and coarse sea salt.

  3. Add the salmon fillets to the pan and coat them in the butter mixture.

Make the anchovy sauce

  1. Wash and bone the anchovies, then cut them into small pieces.

  2. Cut the leek into three or four long pieces and set in a saucepan with butter and flour.

  3. Add the anchovies, leek, capers, pepper, salt, nutmeg, warm water, and vinegar to the saucepan.

  4. Shake the saucepan until it boils.

  5. Simmer until ready.

Cook and serve

  1. Place the salmon on a clean grill and broil over a low fire.

  2. Turn the salmon to cook evenly until done.

  3. Remove the leek from the sauce, pour the sauce into a dish, and place the broiled salmon on top.

  4. Garnish with quartered lemons.

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. Leek + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Flour + caperstop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,024 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Leek + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together152 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Capers + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together211 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Fresh salmon fillets
Forms the main protein, cooking to a flaky texture under low, even heat.
Butter
Coats the salmon and enriches the sauce, adding fat for moisture and flavour.
Flour
Thickens the butter and sauce, giving them body.
Anchovies
Melt into the sauce, adding a deep, savoury saltiness.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens and balances the rich butter sauce.
Capers
Add a briny, sharp note that cuts through the richness of the sauce.

The step that matters

Turn the salmon to cook evenly until done. Salmon cooks quickly and dries out when overcooked, and under broiling heat the surface can char before the centre sets. Turning helps even cooking, so check doneness often.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, butter, flour, leek, capers, pepper, vinegar):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, butter, flour, leek, capers, pepper, vinegar. 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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