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Smoked Salmon Au Jeannot

A dish of smoked salmon simmered in a savory broth with catsup, vinegar, mustard, and cayenne, served over crackers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,259 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Smoked Salmon Au Jeannot

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the salmon

  1. Cut the smoked salmon into strips as long as your middle finger and twice as wide.

  2. Soak the salmon strips in cold water for 2 hours.

  3. Cover the salmon with cold water in a saucepan.

  4. Bring the water to a gentle boil.

  5. Drain the water from the salmon.

  6. Wipe each piece of salmon.

  7. Butter the salmon well.

  8. Place the buttered salmon on a hot dish.

Make the gravy

  1. Heat the beef or veal broth with the boiled onion in another saucepan.

  2. Strain out the onion.

  3. Add the catsup, vinegar, mustard, and cayenne to the hot broth.

Simmer and serve

  1. Add the salmon to the hot gravy.

  2. Cover the dish.

  3. Let it simmer for 10 minutes.

  4. Arrange the salmon in rows on a hot dish.

  5. Cover with gravy.

  6. Serve with heated crackers.

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. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  2. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  3. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Walnut + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together849 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Smoked salmon
Main ingredient, providing the smoky flavor and the tender flaked texture of the dish.
Beef or veal broth
Provides the liquid and savory meaty base of the gravy.
Catsup
Adds sweetness and tang to the gravy, rounding out its flavor.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the gravy and balances the richness.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, coating the salmon and keeping it moist.

The step that matters

Let it simmer for 10 minutes. Salmon proteins firm up and dry out under prolonged or vigorous heat. Keeping the gravy at a gentle simmer for a short time heats the fish through while keeping it tender and moist.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, beef, onion, vinegar, mustard, butter):

  1. Sesamefits better
  2. Beansfits better
  3. Peanutfits better
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, beef, onion, vinegar, mustard, butter. 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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