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Boiled Salmon

Boiled salmon served with egg slices, parsley, and mayonnaise sauce, accompanied by lettuce, cucumber, and tomato.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Lettuce and cucumber match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,409 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Boiled Salmon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the salmon

  1. Scrape off the scales from the salmon.

  2. Wash the salmon in salt water and rinse.

  3. Roll the salmon in a piece of fresh cheesecloth.

Boil the salmon and egg

  1. Prepare the pot by placing a plate in the bottom and filling it with salted water near boiling point (if no fish kettle).

  2. Boil the salmon moderately for about 40 minutes.

  3. Wash the egg and add it to the boiling water.

  4. Boil the egg for 20 minutes.

  5. Remove the egg and place it in cold water.

  6. Peel and slice the egg.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Melt the butter in a pan.

  2. Stir in the flour.

  3. Gradually add the boiling water.

  4. Add lemon juice if desired.

  5. Pour sauce over the fish when serving.

  6. Garnish with egg slices and parsley.

  7. Serve the salmon on a bed of lettuce with cucumber and tomato slices, accompanied by mayonnaise 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. Lettuce + cucumbertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,409 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  3. Parsley + lettucetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,483 recipes

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

  4. Parsley + cucumbertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,564 recipes

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

  5. Lemon + lettucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,559 recipes

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

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 in simmering water until flaky.
Egg
Hard-boiled and sliced as a garnish, adding firm texture and richness to the plate.
Butter
Melted with flour to form a roux, giving the sauce body and a rich, smooth mouthfeel.
Flour
Combined with melted butter to thicken the boiling water into a smooth sauce.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the rich sauce and fish.

The step that matters

Boil the salmon moderately. Gentle simmering cooks the fish evenly while keeping it moist and tender. A hard rolling boil can toughen the flesh and break it apart.

Swap the lemon

The recipe marks lemon as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, egg, butter, flour, parsley, lettuce, cucumber):

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Limefits less well
  4. Cherryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, egg, butter, flour, parsley, lettuce, cucumber. 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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