Name: Stewed Salmon, with Piquant Sauce
Ingredients: salmon slices (1 inch thick); gravy; 2 tablespoons capers; 1 teaspoon anchovy paste; 1 tablespoon soy sauce; ¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper; crawfish (for garnish); lemon (for garnish)

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 ↓

Stewed Salmon, with Piquant Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Fry the salmon slices in a pan until light brown.
Stew the fried salmon in gravy with capers, anchovy paste, soy sauce, and cayenne pepper.
Place the salmon in a serving dish and pour the sauce mixture over it.
Garnish with crawfish and lemon.

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.

Anchovy + saucetop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,057 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Capers + lemontop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,222 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Capers + anchovytop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together473 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).
Salmon + anchovytop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together535 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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 is browned before stewing to add color and flavor.
Capers: Add a sharp, briny acidity that cuts through the richness of the gravy.
Anchovy paste: Adds deep savory, umami flavor to the sauce.
Soy sauce: Contributes salt and savory depth to the stewing liquid.
Gravy: Forms the liquid base that becomes the sauce the salmon simmers in.

The step that matters

Frying the salmon until light brown. Browning the surface through the Maillard reaction builds flavor and color. Over-browning can make the fish dry and bitter before it is stewed.

Swap the lemon

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

Lemonthe original
Avocadofits about as well
Limefits less well
Cherryfits less well

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

Lemon Sauce236 recipes

Salmon Salad155 recipes

Salmon Croquettes129 recipes

Canned Salmon14 recipes

Like knowing why a recipe works?

The free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.

Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.

Stewed Salmon, with Piquant Sauce