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Baked Salmon

A whole salmon stuffed with buttered bread, seasoned, baked, and served with a butter‑flour gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 pepper and salt.

  2. Stuff the fish with buttered bread slices moistened with hot milk or water, adding sage or thyme if desired.

  3. Tie the fish with thread to keep the stuffing in, then remove the thread before serving.

  4. Place muffin rings or a trivet in a dripping pan and put the fish on top.

  5. Dot the fish with butter and dredge with flour.

Bake and baste

  1. Add 1 pint of hot water to the pan for basting and bake at 400°F (200°C) for 1 hour, basting frequently.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. After removing the fish, fry lemon slices in the pan, dredge with 1 teaspoon of flour, and add a small bit of butter.

  2. Stir until browned, then add ½ cup boiling water and stir until smooth.

  3. Strain the gravy over the fish and serve with 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 is cooked through by baking.
Bread
Soaks up moisture and milk or water, keeping the stuffing soft and filling the fish.
Flour
Dredged on the fish and used in the gravy, where it thickens the pan juices.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, helping the fish brown and the gravy taste rounded.
Lemon
Adds acidity and aroma to the pan gravy and garnish.

The step that matters

Basting with hot water during the bake. Adding hot water to the pan and basting frequently keeps the pan moist and the fish from drying out, while the juices collected in the pan become the base for the gravy.

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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