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Salmon and Tomato Sauce

A baked salmon cutlet served with a warm tomato sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Salmon and Tomato 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.

Prepare the salmon

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

  2. Butter a pie dish and place the drained salmon cutlet, divided into neat pieces, in it.

  3. Sprinkle cayenne, salt, vinegar, parsley, and chopped onion over the salmon.

  4. Heat the salmon in the oven until warmed through.

Make the tomato sauce

  1. In a saucepan, warm the tomatoes with a small piece of butter, cayenne, and vinegar.

  2. Add anchovy sauce if desired.

Serve

  1. Once both the salmon and sauce are hot, place the salmon on a serving dish and pour the tomato sauce over it.

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

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

  2. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Parsley + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,398 recipes

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

  5. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Salmon cutlet
Forms the main body of the dish and provides the protein that is warmed through in the oven.
Tomatoes
Form the base of the sauce, adding moisture, acidity and body.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour in both the salmon and the sauce.
Onion
Adds savoury aroma and flavour to the salmon as it heats.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, butter, onion, pepper, vinegar, parsley, anchovy. 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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