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Baked Salmon

A baked salmon topped with a tomato and onion sauce, finished with lemon slices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 20,633 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Baked Salmon

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the tomato sauce

  1. Brown the flour in the butter in a pan.

  2. Add the onion, chiles, tomatoes, and salt, and cook until tender.

  3. Strain the mixture.

Bake and serve

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Place the salmon in a baking dish with a little water.

  3. When the salmon is almost done, lay lemon slices over it and pour the tomato sauce on top.

  4. Continue baking until the salmon is tender.

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. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  2. Tomato + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,592 recipes

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Salmon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

Butter and flour 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 protein, which firms and turns opaque as it cooks through.
Butter
Fat that carries the flour's browning and adds richness to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as it browns in the butter, giving it body.
Tomatoes
Provide the liquid and acidity that form the base of the sauce.
Onion
Softens as it cooks, adding sweetness and savory depth to the sauce.

The step that matters

Strain the tomato sauce. Straining removes the cooked onion, chile, and tomato solids, leaving a smooth sauce. Skipping it leaves a chunky topping that can hide the fish.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, tomato, butter, flour, onion):

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Mangofits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, tomato, butter, flour, onion. 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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