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Slices of Fresh Salmon, or Cod

Slices of fresh salmon or cod are grilled on a fire, seasoned with butter, salt, and lard, served with sauce or butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Salmon and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and 4,472 recipes mention both. Both carry 2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, green. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: milk, fish, shellfish (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Also mentioned in the method: shrimp, lobster, oyster

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Clean the salmon or cod.

  2. Cut it into slices about 1 inch thick.

  3. Dry the slices with a clean cloth.

  4. Rub them with thick melted butter.

  5. Sprinkle a little coarse sea salt over the slices.

Grill

  1. Heat a gridiron over a clear fire slowly. Wipe it clean. Rub the bars with lard or clarified dripping.

  2. Place the fish slices on the gridiron.

  3. Broil until done on one side. Carefully turn to broil the other side.

Serve

  1. Serve the salmon with lobster or anchovy sauce, or plain melted butter.

  2. Serve cod with oyster or shrimp sauce, or plain melted butter.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Salmon + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together4,472 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Salmon or cod
Forms the main body of the dish, cooking into flaky, opaque flesh over the fire.
Melted butter
Adds moisture and richness, helping the surface stay tender and brown lightly on the grill.
Lard or clarified dripping
Greases the gridiron bars so the fish releases cleanly without sticking.

The step that matters

Turning the slices. Fish is delicate and flakes apart easily. Turning carefully once the first side is set keeps the slices intact and prevents the flesh from breaking while it cooks through.

“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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