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Boiled Fish

A whole salmon is boiled, then served with butter, parsley, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Boiled Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the salmon thoroughly and rub a little coarse sea salt into it.

  2. Wrap the salmon in a floured cloth and secure it tightly.

Boil and serve

  1. Place the wrapped salmon in slightly salted boiling water.

  2. Boil for 5 minutes per pound after the water starts boiling.

  3. Once done, carefully unwrap the cloth and serve with drawn butter mixed with minced parsley and lemon juice poured over the fish.

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

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

  5. Salmon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,481 recipes

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

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 boiling to stay moist and flaky.
Flour
Dusted on the cloth, it helps the wrapping seal and keeps the cloth from sticking to the fish.
Rich drawn butter
Adds fat and richness, coating the fish with a smooth, savory finish.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich butter and balances the flavor of the fish.

The step that matters

Timing the boil. Boiling for too long toughens and dries the protein in the fish, while too short a time leaves the center underdone. Timing by weight and starting the clock only once the water is boiling keeps the flesh tender and moist.

“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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