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Salad

Salmon

Boiled salmon served with lobster, anchovy, or shrimp sauce, cucumber salad, plain butter, and some cooking liquid.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Sauce and anchovy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,057 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Salmon

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Bring a pot of water to a boil and add salt and a little vinegar.

  2. Add the salmon and boil for 30 minutes for the head and shoulders, or 1 hour for a whole fish.

  3. Serve with lobster, anchovy, or shrimp sauce, and cucumber salad.

  4. Also serve plain butter and some of the cooking liquid.

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. Sauce + anchovytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Lobster + anchovytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together470 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  3. Lobster + saucetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,095 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Vinegar + cucumbertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,734 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  5. Lobster + shrimptop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together403 recipes

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

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; cooking firms its flesh until it flakes.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the served fish, softening its lean flavour.
Vinegar
Adds a little acidity to the cooking water, sharpening the flavour of the fish.

The step that matters

Add the salmon and boil for the stated time. Boiling for too long toughens the proteins and dries the flesh, while too short a time leaves it undercooked near the bone. Timing depends on whether you cook the head and shoulders or a whole fish.

Swap the cucumber

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, vinegar, lobster, sauce, anchovy, shrimp, butter):

  1. Mustardfits about as well
  2. Chivefits about as well
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, vinegar, lobster, sauce, anchovy, shrimp, butter. 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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