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Baked Salmon

A salmon head baked with bacon, truffles, herbs, and sherry, finished with lemon juice and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Baked Salmon

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Thoroughly clean the head of the salmon and rub salt over it.

  2. Wrap the head in thin slices of bacon and secure with thread.

Bake

  1. Place the head in a stewpan with truffle trimmings, thyme, basil, parsley, laurel, and sherry.

  2. Cover the stewpan with a lid and seal it with flour-and-water paste.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 2 to 3 hours, depending on size.

  4. Remove the head from the stewpan and keep it hot on a dish.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Skim and strain the cooking liquid, boil until reduced, then add sauce and quartered truffles.

  2. Once the truffles are cooked, mix in lemon juice and chopped parsley, then pour over the fish and serve.

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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Thyme + laureltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,444 recipes

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

  3. Thyme + basiltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  4. Basil + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,351 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Parsley + laureltop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,652 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Salmon head
Forms the main body of the dish, cooked gently in a sealed stewpan to stay moist.
Bacon
Wrapped around the head, it bastes the fish with fat as it bakes, keeping it moist.
Truffles
Contribute a deep, earthy aroma that flavours the cooking liquid and the finished sauce.
Sherry
Adds acidity and aromatic depth to the cooking liquid that flavours the fish and sauce.
Lemons
Their juice adds acidity that brightens the rich sauce and balances the fat.

The step that matters

Sealing the stewpan before baking. A tight seal with flour-and-water paste traps steam so the head cooks gently in its own moisture and aromatics. A leaky lid lets steam escape, drying the fish and weakening the flavour of the cooking liquid.

Swap the basil

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, truffle, thyme, parsley, laurel, sherry, flour):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Fennelfits about as well
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Basilthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, truffle, thyme, parsley, laurel, sherry, flour. 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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