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Broiled Smoked Salmon

Broiled smoked salmon served with butter, lemon juice, cayenne pepper, vinegar, and cloves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Broiled Smoked Salmon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash and soak the salmon for 1 hour.

  2. Wipe the salmon and cut it into strips 3 inches long and 1 inch wide.

  3. Parboil the strips in hot water with vinegar and cloves for 15 minutes.

  4. Drain and wipe dry.

Broil and serve

  1. Broil the salmon on a grill until nicely browned.

  2. Place the salmon on a hot dish.

  3. Butter the salmon well.

  4. Squeeze lemon juice over the strips.

  5. Season with cayenne pepper.

  6. 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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Lemon + clovetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

  5. Vinegar + clovetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,386 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Smoked salmon
Provides the main flesh and smoky flavour of the dish.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and helps the surface brown under the grill.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, smoky flavour of the fish.
Vinegar
Added to the parboiling water, where it helps firm the fish and cut its strong, salty taste.

The step that matters

Parboil the strips for 15 minutes. Parboiling in acidified water firms the flesh and draws out excess salt and smoke, so the fish keeps its shape under the grill. Overcooking leaves it dry and crumbly.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Dillfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Clovethe original

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