Name: Salmon a L’ecossaise
Ingredients: 1 whole salmon or trout, cleaned; ½ cup coarse sea salt; ½ pound fresh butter; 2 teaspoons chopped and blanched parsley; 1 pinch grated nutmeg; 1 pinch white pepper; Juice of 1 lemon

Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Salmon a L’ecossaise

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

Remove the gills and wash the fish.
Crimp the fish on both sides with deep incisions.
Soak the fish in clean, cold spring water for about 2 hours.

Poach the fish

Bring a large pot of water to a boil and add the salt.
Add the crimped fish to the boiling water and cook until done, which will take less time than plain fish.
Once cooked, remove the fish immediately from the water to preserve its flavor and firmness.

Make the sauce

For the sauce, melt the butter in a clean saucepan. Stir in the parsley, nutmeg, white pepper, salt, and lemon juice.

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.

Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,037 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,062 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,318 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Nutmeg + white peppertop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,375 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Parsley + white peppertop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,451 recipes

Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

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

What each ingredient does

Salmon or trout: Forms the main body of the dish, cooked gently in salted water until firm and flaky.
Fresh butter: Melted to make the sauce, adding richness and a smooth, creamy texture.
Lemon juice: Adds acidity that brightens the rich butter sauce and balances its fattiness.
Parsley: Adds fresh, herbal flavour and colour to the butter sauce.

The step that matters

Removing the fish from the water promptly after cooking. Fish continues to cook from residual heat and dries out or toughens if left in hot water, so it should be lifted out as soon as it is done.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, butter, parsley, nutmeg, lemon):

Thymefits better
Marjoramfits better
Dillfits better
White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, butter, parsley, nutmeg, lemon. 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

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Salmon a L’ecossaise