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Boiled Salmon Au Court Bouillon

A boiled salmon served with a court bouillon broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Boiled Salmon Au Court Bouillon

Ingredients

Directions

Make the court bouillon

  1. Melt the butter in a frying pan until it hisses.

  2. Add the minced carrot, chopped onion, and celery to the pan.

  3. Pour in the vinegar and add the black peppercorns, cloves, bay leaf, parsley, and boiling water.

  4. Cover and cook for one hour, then strain the mixture.

  5. Pour the strained liquid into a fish kettle.

Cook and serve

  1. Add the salmon wrapped in muslin and boil for 12 minutes per pound.

  2. Serve the salmon with Béchamel sauce and garnish with nasturtium flowers, parsley, or cress.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Salmon
Is the main protein, cooked gently in the aromatic liquid so it stays moist and tender.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the bouillon and the fish.
Carrot
Adds subtle sweetness and aromatic depth to the cooking liquid.
Onion
Contributes savoury aroma and body to the cooking liquid.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the base vegetables, carrying their aroma.

The step that matters

Boil the salmon for 12 minutes per pound. Salmon is cooked when its flesh turns opaque and flakes easily. Overboiling at a hard boil toughens the proteins and dries the fish, so keep the liquid at a steady simmer and check for doneness early.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, carrot, onion, celery, vinegar, parsley, salmon):

  1. Dillfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, carrot, onion, celery, vinegar, parsley, salmon. 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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