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Salmon, Oyster Sauce

Poached salmon seasoned with salt, onion, vinegar, peppercorns, cloves, and parsley roots, served with oyster sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,768 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Salmon, Oyster Sauce

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Poach the salmon

  1. Place the salmon in a fish kettle and cover with cold water.

  2. Season with salt, onion, vinegar, peppercorns, cloves, and parsley roots.

  3. Bring to a boil over brisk heat.

  4. Cook for 5 minutes after boiling, then remove and drain the salmon.

Serve

  1. Serve on a hot dish, decorated with parsley greens, and with hot oyster sauce on the side.

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. Clove + parsleytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Onion + clovetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,901 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  4. Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Vinegar + clovetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,386 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Salmon
Is the main protein, cooked gently in liquid so it stays moist and flakes evenly.
White vinegar
Adds acidity to the poaching liquid, which brightens the flavour of the fish.
Onion
Adds aromatic flavour to the poaching liquid.

The step that matters

Keep the water at a gentle simmer after boiling. Once the water reaches a boil, a hard rolling boil can break the salmon apart and toughen the flesh. Holding the liquid at a gentle simmer cooks the fish evenly and keeps it tender and moist.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, onion, vinegar, parsley):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Dillfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, onion, vinegar, parsley. 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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