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Baking

To Bake Salmon

Baked salmon served with a sauce of butter, flour, gravy, port wine, catsup, anchovies, and cayenne.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

To Bake Salmon

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the dish

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Place the salmon slices in a dish.

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Stir the melted butter into the flour.

  3. Add the gravy, port wine, catsup, anchovies, and cayenne.

  4. Cook the sauce until the anchovies dissolve.

  5. Strain the sauce.

Assemble and bake

  1. Pour the sauce over the salmon.

  2. Cover the dish with buttered paper.

  3. Bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + port winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,499 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Salmon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,481 recipes

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

  4. Flour + port winetop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,167 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Salmon + port winetop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together72 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Salmon
The main ingredient, baked under the sauce so it stays moist and tender.
Butter
Melted with the flour to form a roux that starts the sauce's thickening.
Flour
Thickens the sauce with the melted butter as it cooks.
Gravy
Forms the main liquid base of the sauce and carries its savory flavor.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth of flavor to the sauce.
Anchovies
Dissolve into the sauce, adding a salty, savory depth without a fishy taste.

The step that matters

Cook the sauce until the anchovies dissolve. Simmering fully dissolves the anchovies and cooks the flour, so the sauce thickens smoothly and does not taste raw or pasty.

“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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