The Science of Caramelization: How to Make Honey Glazed Salmon

One of the scientific principals occurring in the creation of the dish is caramelization. Essentially, caramelization is the browning that appears on the salmon during the cooking process. It begins with isomerization of the disaccharides, followed by breakdown of the same. In this case, the sucrose in wheat is broken down into glucose and fructose. The monosaccharides undergo transformations in a reversible and a non-reversible reaction. The reversible reaction arises from ionization of the monosaccharides and subsequent rearrangement at equilibrium. Dehydration occurs with dicarboxylic splitting to form an aldose sugar. Intermolecular bonding takes place followed by isomerization of the aldose sugar to form a ketose sugar (Kocadağlı, & Gökmen, 2016). Enolisation takes place and initiates a chain of events which lead to the breakdown of the ketose sugar to form aliphatic products. These aliphatic sugars breakdown to form volatile aroma and a polymer which is the brown compound on the salmon. Another reaction that takes place is the Maillard reaction. In the making of the dish, the salmon is in contact with honey, which contains simple sugars or rather, reducing sugars. The two are subjected to heating which initiates the Maillard reaction. The first step involves the reaction between the carbonyl group of the reducing sugars with the amino group of the amino acids present in the salmon. The reaction involves substitution, leading to the formation of a condensation product known as N-substituted glycosamine and water (Kocadağlı, & Gökmen, 2016). Formation of the Schiff’s base triggers Amadori rearrangement to form ketosamines. The ketosamines react to form brown polymers of nitrogen as seen on the cooked salmon. A different reaction that takes place is lipid peroxidation. The dish requires the use of olive oil which contains unsaturated fatty acids. When subjected to heat, these fatty acids undergo oxidation to form ketones and aldehydes (Kocadağlı, & Gökmen, 2016). Subsequently, these react with the amino acids in salmon to form brown compounds as in the Maillard reaction. 

Reference 

Kocadağlı, T., & Gökmen, V. (2016). Multiresponse kinetic modelling of Maillard reaction and caramelisation in a heated glucose/wheat flour system. Food chemistry , 211, 892-902.