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Water Souchet Oe Crimped Salmon

A salmon dish cooked with boiled parsley roots, parsley leaves, pepper, salt, and fish essence.

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 ↓

Water Souchet Oe Crimped Salmon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Keep the salmon slices in cold spring water for 2 hours to firm up.

Cook

  1. In a stewpan, combine salmon, boiled parsley roots, their water, parsley leaves, pepper, and salt.

  2. Moisten with essence of fish made from inferior salmon pieces or flounders.

  3. Cook gently until the salmon is done.

Serve

  1. Serve with a side of plain boiled Patna rice.

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. Salmon + fishtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,078 recipes

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

  3. Parsley + fishtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Pepper + fishtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,948 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Salmon + parsleytop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).

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

What each ingredient does

Fresh salmon
Provides the main flesh, which firms and flakes as its proteins set with gentle heat.
Shredded parsley roots
Add a mild, earthy flavour and body to the stewpan.
Water from boiled parsley roots
Carries flavour from the roots and keeps the salmon moist while it cooks.
Picked parsley leaves
Add a fresh, herbal aroma to the finished dish.
Essence of fish
Adds savoury depth and extra liquid to the stewpan.

The step that matters

Cook gently until the salmon is done. Salmon proteins tighten quickly under high heat, squeezing out moisture and making the flesh dry and tough. Gentle heat sets the flesh slowly, keeping it tender and moist, so check for doneness early rather than over-cooking.

Swap the parsley

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, pepper, fish. 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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