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Dressed Salmon

Salmon cooked in a spiced vinegar and stock marinade, then sauced, shaped into cutlets and fried in clarified butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 19 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Dressed Salmon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the marinade

  1. Prepare the marinade by combining carrot, turnip, celery, onion, sweet herbs, mace, whole pepper, cloves, bay leaf, anchovies, vinegar, brown stock, and sherry in a pot.

  2. Place the salmon in a fish kettle or large baking dish, cover with butter paper, and baste with the marinade frequently.

  3. Cook the salmon until done, then drain the stock and thicken it by straining through a tammy.

Make the sauce

  1. If using capers, add them to the strained sauce and boil, skimming off any grease.

  2. Season the sauce with lemon juice, cayenne pepper, salt, and sugar, and add anchovy essence if desired.

  3. Pour the sauce over the cooked salmon.

Fry and serve

  1. Cut the salmon into cutlet shapes and pass each through clarified butter mixed with cayenne pepper.

  2. Fry the cutlets in a sauté pan until golden, then remove and drain excess grease.

  3. Serve with a good brown sauce, adding a few drops of anchovy sauce and lemon juice.

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. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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, becoming flaky and moist as it cooks in the marinade.
Brown stock
Provides the savory liquid base that carries flavor into the salmon and the sauce.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the marinade and sharpens the flavor of the sauce.
Sherry
Adds depth and a mellow sweetness to the marinade and sauce.
Anchovies
Contribute a salty, savory depth that rounds out the sauce.
Clarified butter
Gives the cutlets a golden, crisp surface when fried and carries the cayenne.

The step that matters

Draining and reducing the sauce before seasoning. Skimming grease and straining the liquid keeps the sauce clear and smooth; seasoning before it is well cooked can leave it greasy or unevenly flavored.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, carrot, turnip, celery, onion, pepper, clove):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, carrot, turnip, celery, onion, pepper, clove. 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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