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Baked Salmon

A whole salmon stuffed with buttered bread, baked with butter, flour, and water, served with a gravy and boiled potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 887 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Baked Salmon

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the fish

  1. Rub the salmon inside and out with salt and pepper.

  2. Stuff the fish with buttered bread slices moistened with hot milk or water.

  3. Add sage or thyme if desired.

  4. Tie the fish with thread to keep the stuffing in.

Bake

  1. Place muffin rings or a trivet in a dripping pan.

  2. Put the fish on top.

  3. Dot the fish with butter.

  4. Dredge with flour.

  5. Add 1 pint of hot water to the pan for basting.

  6. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 1 hour.

  7. Baste frequently.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. After removing the fish, add lemon slices to the pan.

  2. Fry them slightly.

  3. Dredge in 1 teaspoon of wheat flour.

  4. Add a small bit of butter.

  5. Let it brown without burning.

  6. Stir in ½ teacup of boiling water until smooth.

  7. Strain the gravy.

  8. Remove the thread before serving.

  9. Serve with the fish and boiled potatoes.

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. Sage + lemontop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together887 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Pepper + sagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

  4. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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 provides the flesh that cooks through in the oven.
Buttered bread slices
Make the stuffing, absorbing juices and keeping the fish moist as it bakes.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the fish surface brown during baking.
Flour
Dredged over the fish and used in the gravy to thicken the pan juices.
Lemon
Adds acidity and aroma to the pan juices that flavour the gravy.

The step that matters

Let it brown without burning. Flour and butter browning in the pan juices develop flavour, but scorched fat turns bitter, so the gravy needs close attention and gentle heat.

Swap the sage

The recipe marks sage as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, pepper, bread, milk, butter, flour, lemon):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Marjoramfits about as well
  4. Sagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, pepper, bread, milk, butter, flour, lemon. 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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