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Salmon Cutlets with Gherkin Sauce

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 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 ↓

Salmon Cutlets with Gherkin Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Butter a baking dish and lay the salmon cutlets side by side.

  3. Dredge the cutlets with salt and pepper, then cover with buttered paper.

  4. In a saucepan, combine fish trimmings, carrots, onions, thyme, parsley, bay leaf, salt, and pepper.

  5. Add enough white stock to make sauce and simmer gently for 30 minutes.

  6. Peel and cut cucumber into 1-inch lengths, remove seeds, and boil in salted water until nearly tender.

  7. Strain the cucumber, refresh in cold water, and drain again.

  8. Melt butter in a flat stewpan, add cucumber pieces, minced parsley, salt, and pepper, and keep warm.

  9. Bake the salmon cutlets in the oven for about 10 minutes.

  10. In a stewpan, melt butter and stir in flour until browned, then strain in the fish trimmings liquor and add minced parsley.

  11. Boil the sauce while stirring continuously.

  12. Arrange the salmon cutlets on a hot dish, pile cucumber in the center, pour sauce over, 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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Carrot + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

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

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

Swap the cucumber

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, pepper, butter, carrot, onion, thyme, parsley):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, pepper, butter, carrot, onion, thyme, parsley. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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