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Fresh Salmon

Fresh salmon slices are broiled and served with a sauce of anchovies, leek, capers, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Leek and capers share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Fresh Salmon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the salmon

  1. Clean and dry the salmon slices.

  2. Melt butter with a little flour and coarse sea salt.

  3. Coat the salmon slices in the butter mixture.

Make the anchovy sauce

  1. Wash, bone and chop the anchovies.

  2. Cut the leek into long pieces and sauté it in a saucepan with butter and flour.

  3. Add the anchovies, leek, capers, pepper, salt, nutmeg, warm water, and vinegar to the saucepan.

  4. Bring the sauce to a boil, then simmer until ready.

  5. Remove the leek from the sauce.

Cook and serve

  1. Place the salmon on a clean grill.

  2. Broil the salmon over a slow fire, turning it to cook evenly until done.

  3. Pour the sauce onto a dish.

  4. Place the salmon on top of the sauce.

  5. Garnish with lemon quarters.

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. Leek + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Flour + caperstop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,024 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Leek + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together152 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Capers + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together211 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Salmon
Provides the main protein, which sets and firms as it cooks over the fire.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps the salmon coating brown and stay moist.
Flour
Thickens the butter and the sauce, giving them body and a smooth texture.
Anchovies
Contribute deep savory flavour that melts into the sauce as it simmers.
Capers
Add a sharp, briny acidity that balances the rich butter and fish.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and cuts through its richness.

The step that matters

Simmering the sauce after it boils. Once the flour-thickened sauce reaches a boil it must simmer gently; boiling hard can scorch the flour and break the sauce, leaving it lumpy or grainy.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, butter, flour, leek, capers, pepper, vinegar):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, butter, flour, leek, capers, pepper, vinegar. 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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