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Salmon with Caper Sauce

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Shallot and capers match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 405 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Salmon with Caper Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Steep salmon slices in oil with parsley, chives, shallots, pepper, and salt.

  2. Wrap the slices in buttered paper with some of the steeping seasoning.

  3. Grill until cooked through.

  4. Remove the paper and serve with white sauce and capers.

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. Shallot + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together405 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Chive + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Chive + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together245 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Parsley + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,550 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

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

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, chive, shallot, pepper, butter, sauce, capers):

  1. Tarragonfits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Dillfits less well
  4. Thymefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, chive, shallot, pepper, butter, sauce, capers. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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