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Salmon a L’ecossaise

A boiled salmon served with a butter, parsley, nutmeg, pepper, and lemon sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Salmon a L’ecossaise

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Remove the gills and gut the fish.

  2. Wash the fish and make deep incisions on both sides.

  3. Soak the fish in clean, cold spring water for about 2 hours.

Poach the fish

  1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil and add a handful of salt.

  2. Carefully place the crimped fish in the boiling water and cook until done, which will take less time than plain fish.

  3. Once cooked, remove the fish immediately from the water to preserve its flavor and firmness.

Make the sauce

  1. For the sauce, melt the butter in a clean saucepan.

  2. Add parsley, nutmeg, white pepper, salt, and lemon juice to the sauce. Stir well.

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 + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  3. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Nutmeg + white peppertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,375 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Parsley + white peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

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

What each ingredient does

Salmon or trout
Forms the main body of the dish, supplying the flesh that is cooked and served.
Fresh butter
Melts into the sauce, adding richness and a smooth, silky texture.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the buttery sauce and balances its richness.
Parsley
Contributes fresh, herbal aroma to the sauce.

The step that matters

Removing the fish from the water once cooked. Fish protein sets as it cooks and keeps cooking in residual heat. Leaving it in hot water past doneness makes the flesh dry, firm and tough, so it should come out as soon as it is cooked through.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, butter, parsley, nutmeg, lemon):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Dillfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, butter, parsley, nutmeg, lemon. 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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