Why it works: Bread and salmon work together. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 941 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓
To Boil Fish
Ingredients
Directions
Bring water to a boil and add salt and vinegar.
For salmon, add a pinch of bread soda to enhance color.
Cook fish for 8 minutes per pound, plus an additional 8 minutes.
Check doneness by ensuring the flesh has lost its clear color and separates easily from the bone.
If keeping fish hot, lift the drainer out of the water and cover with a cloth to retain steam.
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.
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Bread + salmontop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together941 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Vinegar + breadtop 25% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,672 recipes
Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
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Vinegar + salmontop 27% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,675 recipes
Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Bread soda
- Helps the salmon keep a brighter, more appealing color during cooking.
- Vinegar
- Adds a little acidity to the cooking water.
The step that matters
Checking doneness. Fish keeps cooking from residual heat after it leaves the water, so it can turn dry and flaky quickly. Checking that the flesh has turned opaque and separates easily from the bone helps you stop at the right moment.
“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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