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Barbecue of Salmon

A salmon dish barbecued in a chafing dish with tomato sauce, butter, capers, and peas.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Olive and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,539 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Barbecue of Salmon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the salmon

  1. Marinate the salmon in olive oil, onion, cider vinegar, salt, and Worcestershire sauce.

Make the sauce and heat

  1. In the upper part of the chafing dish, combine tomato catsup, butter, capers, and hot water; stir until hot.

  2. Add the marinated salmon and stir well.

  3. Incorporate the peas, cover, and let stand over hot water until heated through.

Serve

  1. Serve hot from the chafing dish with thinly sliced brown bread sandwiches.

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. Olive + tomatotop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,539 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  3. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Olive + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,779 recipes

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

  5. Olive + vinegartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,297 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Salmon
Provides the main protein and flaky body of the dish.
Tomato catsup
Adds sweetness and acidity to the sauce that coats the salmon.
Worcestershire sauce
Contributes savory, salty depth to the marinade.
Cider vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the marinade.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the warm sauce.
Peas
Add sweetness, colour and soft texture to the mixture.

The step that matters

Heating the salmon over hot water. Holding the mixture gently over hot water heats it through without boiling. Overheating can toughen the fish and cause the butter-based sauce to separate, so keep the heat moderate and stir well.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, olive, cider, vinegar, sauce, tomato, butter):

  1. Cucumberfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, olive, cider, vinegar, sauce, tomato, butter. 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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