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Boiled Salmon

A whole salmon is boiled and served with drawn butter, eggs, lemon fish sauce, or pease pudding sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Boiled Salmon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean the salmon thoroughly without soaking it in water.

  2. Rub a little coarse sea salt into the body of the salmon.

  3. Dust the salmon with flour and wrap it in a cloth, securing it with a pin.

Boil and serve

  1. Bring a pot of water to a boil and add the wrapped salmon.

  2. Boil the salmon for about 30 minutes after the water returns to a boil.

  3. Serve with drawn butter and eggs, lemon fish sauce, or pease pudding 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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Salmon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,481 recipes

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

  5. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Salmon
Forms the main body of the dish and is cooked gently by simmering in water.
Flour
Dusted on the wrapped fish, it helps form a thin coating that protects the surface during boiling.
Eggs
Used in the accompanying sauce, where they add richness and body.
Drawn butter
Adds fat and richness to the fish, carrying flavour in the sauce.

The step that matters

Boil the salmon for about 30 minutes after the water returns to a boil. Timing starts only once the water is boiling again, after the fish is added. Boiling too hard can break up the flesh, while too short a time leaves the centre underdone. Keeping the water at a steady simmer cooks the fish evenly.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, flour, butter, egg, fish sauce, sauce):

  1. Coconutfits better
  2. Avocadofits better
  3. Pumpkinfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, flour, butter, egg, fish sauce, 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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