Why it works: Salmon and anchovy work together. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 535 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓
Broiled Salmon
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Dry the salmon slices with a cloth and season with salt and pepper.
Dredge the slices in flour.
Broil
Grease a gridiron with suet and broil the slices until cooked through.
Alternatively, butter sheets of white paper, place each slice on a piece, and wrap them with twisted ends.
Broil the wrapped slices gently over a clear fire.
Serve
Serve with anchovy or caper sauce, adding chopped herbs and spices if desired.
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.
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Salmon + anchovytop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together535 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + anchovytop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,697 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Salmon + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,481 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
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Pepper + anchovytop 17% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together3,232 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Flour and butter 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
- Forms the main body of the dish and cooks to a flaky texture under heat.
- Flour
- Dries the surface of the salmon so it browns and forms a light coating.
- Suet
- Greases the gridiron so the fish does not stick and gains a little richness.
- Anchovy or caper sauce
- Adds salty, sharp flavor that balances the richness of the fish.
The step that matters
Broiling the wrapped slices gently. Gentle heat over a clear fire cooks the salmon through without scorching the paper or drying the flesh. Fierce heat can char the outside before the centre is done, leaving the fish dry and tough.
“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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