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To Roll Salmon

A salmon fillet rolled with pepper, salt, nutmeg, mace, oysters, parsley, and breadcrumbs, then baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley 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 ↓

To Roll Salmon

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the roll

  1. Strew pepper, salt, nutmeg, mace, chopped oysters, parsley, and bread crumbs over the inside of the salmon.

  2. Roll the salmon tightly and place it in a deep pot.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C).

  2. Serve with common fish sauce poured over it.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  3. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

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

  5. Salmon + oystertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together672 recipes

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

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, cooking into moist, flaky flesh when baked.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture from the fish and oysters, helping the filling hold together inside the roll.
Chopped oysters
Add briny, savoury flavour and moisture to the filling.

The step that matters

Rolling the salmon tightly. A tight roll keeps the filling inside and cooks the fish evenly. A loose roll lets the stuffing fall out and leaves thin parts overcooked before the centre sets.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, pepper, nutmeg, oyster, parsley, bread):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, pepper, nutmeg, oyster, parsley, bread. 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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