Skip to main content
Main

Salmon Surprise

A baked potato border topped with salmon and oysters, finished with egg yolk glaze and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Salmon Surprise

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the potato border

  1. Boil the potatoes until tender.

  2. Mash them with butter, coarse sea salt, pepper, and enough hot milk to moisten.

  3. Transfer the mashed potatoes to a pastry bag.

  4. Pipe them onto a stoneware platter to resemble a border of white roses.

Assemble and bake

  1. Open the can of salmon and break the fish into large pieces.

  2. Heat the salmon in a steamer until warmed through.

  3. Place the salmon in the center of the potato border, seasoning with coarse sea salt, pepper, and a pinch of mace.

  4. Brush the potato border with the beaten egg yolk.

  5. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until browned.

Make the oyster topping and serve

  1. In a saucepan, combine the oysters, their strained liquor, a dash of coarse sea salt, pepper, and 1 tablespoon of butter.

  2. Cook over heat until the oysters curl.

  3. Pour the oyster mixture over the salmon when it comes out of the oven.

  4. Sprinkle with chopped parsley.

  5. Serve.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  4. Salmon + oystertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together672 recipes

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

  5. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Mashed and piped to form the edible border that holds the salmon.
Egg yolk
Brushed on the border so it browns richly in the oven.
Salmon
Provides the main fish filling at the center of the dish.
Oysters
Cooked in their liquor to make a briny topping over the salmon.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the mashed potatoes and oyster topping.

The step that matters

Cook the oysters until they just curl. Oysters turn rubbery when overcooked; heating only until the edges curl keeps them tender and juicy once poured over the hot salmon.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, butter, pepper, milk, salmon, egg, oyster):

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Dillfits about as well
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Capersfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, butter, pepper, milk, salmon, egg, oyster. 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.

You might also like

Potato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesSalmon SaladSalmon Salad155 recipesSalmon CroquettesSalmon Croquettes129 recipesPotato RollsPotato Rolls78 recipes