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Boiled Salmon

A whole salmon is boiled in salted water and served with sauce and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Salmon and lobster work together. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 313 recipes. Both carry 2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, green. The science ↓

Boiled Salmon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil.

  2. Add coarse sea salt to the boiling water.

Cook and serve

  1. Carefully place the salmon in the boiling water.

  2. Boil the salmon gently for 1 hour for a 10‑pound fish, or 30 minutes for a 6‑pound head and shoulders.

  3. Remove the salmon and dress it on a napkin.

  4. Serve with lobster sauce, shrimp sauce, or melted butter, garnished with boiled parsley.

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. Salmon + lobstertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together313 recipes

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

  2. Lobster + parsleytop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together890 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  3. Salmon + parsleytop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).

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, cooked gently by poaching in simmering water.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the cooking water so the fish is lightly flavoured as it cooks.

The step that matters

Boil the salmon gently. Vigorous boiling agitates and toughens the delicate proteins, leaving the flesh dry and ragged. A gentle simmer cooks it evenly and keeps it moist and tender.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, lobster. 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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