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To Boil Fresh Salmon

A simple boiled salmon served with horseradish, parsley, and lobster sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

To Boil Fresh Salmon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and poach

  1. Scale and clean the fish, handling it minimally and cutting it open only as necessary.

  2. Place the fish in a large fish kettle and fill it with cold water.

  3. Add a handful of coarse sea salt and bring to a slow boil.

  4. Cook for 15 minutes per pound, checking for doneness with a fork.

  5. Skim the surface to maintain color.

  6. Once cooked, lift the fish to drain and cover with a soft napkin to absorb moisture.

Serve

  1. Serve on a hot dish garnished with scraped horseradish and curled parsley.

  2. Prepare a small tureen of lobster sauce to accompany the salmon.

Keep leftovers

  1. For leftovers, place the salmon in a deep dish with a close cover.

  2. In the reserved boiling water, add pepper, cloves, vinegar, and salt, then boil.

  3. Once cooled, pour the mixture over the salmon and cover tightly.

  4. Store in a cold place or on ice for up to two days.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Horseradish + parsleytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together562 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Clove + parsleytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Clove + horseradishtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,245 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Fresh salmon
Forms the main body of the dish, cooked gently in simmering water until it flakes.
Vinegar
Adds acidity to the pickling liquid, brightening flavor and helping preserve the leftover fish.
Whole cloves
Contributes warm, aromatic spice to the pickling liquid for the leftover salmon.
Whole pepper
Adds sharp, aromatic heat to the pickling liquid used for the leftover salmon.

The step that matters

Keep the simmer gentle and skim the surface. A slow boil cooks the fish evenly and keeps the flesh tender, while skimming removes foam that would cloud the surface and dull the fish's color.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, pepper, vinegar, horseradish, parsley):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, pepper, vinegar, horseradish, parsley. 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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