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Baked Salmon

A baked salmon dish with butter, eggs, breadcrumbs, and a sauce of drawn butter, salmon liquid, egg, pickle, and herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Baked Salmon

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the salmon

  1. Drain the liquid from the salmon and set it aside for the sauce.

  2. Remove the skin and bones from the salmon and flake it into pieces.

  3. Mix the salmon with melted butter, seasoning, eggs, and bread crumbs.

Bake and serve

  1. Transfer the mixture to a buttered bowl, cover tightly, and place in a pan of boiling water.

  2. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for one hour.

  3. After baking, briefly place the bowl in cold water to loosen the fish, then turn it out onto a hot dish.

  4. For the sauce, combine drawn butter, reserved salmon liquid, a beaten egg, seasoning, chopped pickle, and minced parsley, cabbage, or lettuce.

  5. Bring the sauce to a boil and pour it over the fish or serve it in a gravy tureen.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Cucumber + parsleytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,564 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  4. Salmon + cucumbertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together513 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + cucumbertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,991 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

Eggs
Bind the salmon mixture so it holds together when baked and turned out.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the baked salmon a soft, sliceable body.
Melted butter
Adds fat and moisture so the salmon stays tender rather than dry.
Drawn butter
Forms the base of the sauce, adding richness and smooth body.

The step that matters

Baking in a water bath. Cooking the covered bowl in boiling water moderates the heat so the egg-bound salmon sets gently without drying or curdling harshly. Cooling briefly before turning out helps the set loaf release cleanly.

Swap the cucumber

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, egg, butter, bread, pepper, sauce, parsley):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, egg, butter, bread, pepper, sauce, parsley. 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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