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Boiled Salmon

A whole salmon boiled in salted water, served with a butter, parsley, and lemon sauce and garnished with hard boiled eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Boiled Salmon

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the salmon

  1. Sew the salmon in a white mosquito net bag.

  2. Boil in hot salted water for 15 minutes per pound.

  3. Carefully unwrap the fish and place it on a hot dish.

Sauce and serve

  1. In a bowl, mix drawn butter, chopped parsley, and lemon juice.

  2. Pour the sauce over the fish or serve it in a gravy boat.

  3. Garnish the dish with hard boiled eggs.

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Salmon + eggtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,485 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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 boiling in its bag.
Drawn butter
Adds richness and a smooth, moist coating to the fish.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich butter and balances the flavour.

The step that matters

Boiling the salmon. Boiling in water that is too hot or for too long can overcook the fish, making it dry and firm. Keeping the water hot but timed to the weight of the fish helps it stay moist and tender.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Capersfits about as well
  3. Dillfits about as well
  4. Tarragonfits less well

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