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To Warm Up Salmon

A baked salmon dish with a sauce of liquor, oils, vinegars, capers, anchovy sauce, and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Anchovy and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,057 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

To Warm Up Salmon

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.

Prepare

  1. Separate the salmon into flakes and place them in a bowl.

  2. Mix the liquor, salad oil, chili vinegar, cucumber vinegar, capers, and anchovy sauce together.

  3. Pour the sauce over the salmon and let it soak for about 2 hours.

Assemble and bake

  1. Transfer the salmon to a scallop tin.

  2. Combine the remaining sauce with enough bread crumbs to achieve a thick consistency.

  3. Cover the salmon with the breadcrumb mixture.

  4. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until browned.

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. Anchovy + saucetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Cucumber + caperstop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together303 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Capers + anchovytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together473 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  4. Vinegar + cucumbertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,734 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  5. Anchovy + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,260 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).

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 and provides the protein that the soaking sauce flavors.
Bread crumbs
Form a thick crust on top that browns during baking and adds a crisp texture.
Salad oil
Adds moisture and fat to the sauce, helping the salmon stay tender while baking.
Liquor
Adds savory depth to the soaking sauce that carries into the salmon.
Anchovy sauce
Adds a salty, savory note that deepens the flavor of the salmon.

The step that matters

Soaking the salmon. Letting the flakes soak in the sauce for about two hours lets the liquid and seasonings penetrate the fish. Skipping or shortening this step leaves the salmon under-seasoned and more likely to taste flat under the crust.

Swap the cucumber

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, vinegar, capers, anchovy, sauce, bread):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Horseradishfits about as well
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, vinegar, capers, anchovy, sauce, bread. 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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