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A LA Genevoise

A salmon dish stewed with fennel, parsley, mushrooms, and a wine-based gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 14,036 recipes mention both. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

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

Directions

Prepare the salmon

  1. Squeeze lemon juice over the salmon.

  2. Pour vinegar over the chopped fennel and parsley.

  3. Roll the salmon in the fennel and parsley mixture until well coated.

Make the stew

  1. Combine broth and wine in a fish kettle.

  2. Add the salmon, chopped mushrooms, shallots, parsley, and savory herbs to the kettle.

  3. Stew the mixture slowly, seasoning moderately.

  4. Add an anchovy to the stew.

  5. Thicken the stew with flour and butter.

  6. Thicken the gravy with a little clarified butter.

  7. Stew the salmon gently until cooked through.

Serve

  1. Serve with green pickles.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together14,036 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Lemon + fenneltop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together723 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Fennel + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together625 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. White wine + mushroomtop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,704 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

  5. Butter + mushroomtop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together12,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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 becomes tender as it cooks gently in the liquid.
Flour
Thickens the stew and gravy, giving them body as it cooks with the butter.
Clarified butter
Adds richness and helps thicken the gravy while carrying flavour.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavour and moisture to the stew as they release their juices.
White wine or port/claret
Adds acidity and depth to the broth, building the flavour of the stew.
Anchovy
Adds savory depth to the stew, rounding out its flavour without tasting fishy.

The step that matters

Stew the salmon gently until cooked through. Gentle heat cooks the salmon evenly and keeps it moist and tender. Boiling hard toughens the proteins, squeezing out moisture and leaving the fish dry and firm.

Flavor stand-ins for the fennel

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, lemon, vinegar, parsley, butter, white wine, mushroom):

  1. Thymebetter flavor fit
  2. Tarragonbetter flavor fit
  3. Dillbetter flavor fit
  4. Fennelthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, lemon, vinegar, parsley, butter, white wine, mushroom. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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