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Steamed Salmon or White Fish

A whole salmon or white fish is seasoned with salt, pepper, and vinegar, steamed, and served with parsley sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 ↓

Steamed Salmon or White Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean the fish thoroughly.

  2. Rub the fish inside and out with coarse sea salt, black pepper, and vinegar.

  3. Roll the fish in a cloth.

Steam and serve

  1. Add 1 tablespoon of vinegar to the steaming water to prevent the fish from breaking.

  2. Steam the fish for 20 minutes for every pound.

  3. Serve with parsley sauce.

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. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  3. Vinegar + parsleytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,477 recipes

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

  4. Salmon + saucetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,765 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Parsley + saucetop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,693 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Salmon or white fish
Provides the protein that turns firm and flaky when steamed.
Vinegar
Added to the steaming water to help keep the fish from breaking apart.

The step that matters

Steam the fish for 20 minutes for every pound. Steaming time depends on weight, so an estimate based on the fish's size matters. Undercooking leaves the flesh translucent and raw near the bone, while overcooking dries it out and makes it fall apart.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, pepper, vinegar, sauce):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Dillfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, pepper, vinegar, sauce. 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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