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Salmon Steaks with Cucumber

Salmon steaks baked in buttered dish with brown stock, tarragon vinegar, butter, and served with cucumber shreds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Tarragon and chervil match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 824 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Salmon Steaks with Cucumber

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare and bake

  1. Wipe the salmon steaks dry and sprinkle with salt, pepper, and lemon juice.

  2. Place the steaks in a buttered baking dish and pour the brown stock around them.

  3. Cover with buttered paper and bake at 400°F (200°C) for 20 minutes.

  4. Once done, transfer the steaks to a hot serving dish.

Make the sauce

  1. Strain the gravy into a pan, add the tarragon vinegar, and gradually stir in the butter.

  2. Add seasoning and the chopped tarragon, chervil, or parsley, then pour over the steaks.

Serve

  1. Season the cucumber shreds with vinegar, salt, and pepper, and place a pile on each steak before serving.

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. Tarragon + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together824 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Tarragon + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,137 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + cherviltop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together358 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Cucumber + cherviltop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together144 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Salmon steaks
Form the main body of the dish, cooking through gently in the stock to stay moist.
Butter
Enriches the strained gravy, giving it body and a smooth, glossy texture.
Brown stock
Provides the savoury liquid that gently poaches the salmon and forms the base of the gravy.
Tarragon vinegar
Adds acidity and sharpness that balances the rich butter and gravy.
Cucumber
Adds cool, crisp texture that contrasts with the warm, rich salmon.

The step that matters

Transferring the gravy and finishing the butter. Adding butter gradually to warm, strained gravy lets it emulsify into a smooth sauce; if the liquid is too hot or the butter added all at once, it can separate and look greasy.

Swap the cucumber

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, tarragon, vinegar, pepper, lemon, butter, chervil):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Lettucefits about as well
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, tarragon, vinegar, pepper, lemon, butter, chervil. 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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