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Broiling Fish

Broiled salmon served with a sauce of anchovies, leek, capers, pepper, nutmeg, vinegar, and warm water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Leek and capers share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Broiling Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the salmon

  1. Cut slices from fresh salmon.

  2. Wipe the salmon slices clean and dry.

  3. Melt butter.

  4. Mix the melted butter with a little flour and coarse sea salt.

  5. Coat the salmon pieces in the butter mixture.

Make the anchovy sauce

  1. Wash, bone, and chop the anchovies.

  2. Cut the leek into long pieces.

  3. Melt some butter in a saucepan.

  4. Add flour, anchovies, leek, capers, pepper, salt, and nutmeg to the butter.

  5. Add warm water and vinegar to the sauce.

  6. Bring the sauce to a boil and simmer until ready.

  7. Remove the leek from the sauce.

Broil and serve

  1. Place the salmon on a clean grill.

  2. Broil the salmon over a clear, slow fire.

  3. Turn the salmon to cook evenly on both sides.

  4. Pour the sauce into a dish.

  5. Place the broiled salmon on top.

  6. Garnish with lemon quarters.

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. Leek + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Flour + caperstop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,024 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Leek + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together152 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Capers + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together211 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Salmon
Provides the main protein, which firms and turns opaque as it cooks over gentle heat.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps the coating brown lightly and keep the fish moist.
Flour
Thickens the sauce and helps the butter coating cling to the salmon.
Anchovies
Adds deep savory flavor that melts into the sauce as it simmers.
Capers
Contribute briny, sharp acidity that balances the rich butter sauce.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and cuts its richness.

The step that matters

Simmering the sauce after adding the liquid. Flour thickens only when the mixture reaches a boil and is simmered long enough. Simmering too briefly leaves the sauce thin and floury-tasting, while boiling hard can scorch the butter and flour on the pan bottom.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, butter, flour, leek, capers, pepper, vinegar):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, butter, flour, leek, capers, pepper, vinegar. 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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