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Boiled Salmon

A whole salmon is boiled, then served with drawn butter, eggs, lemon fish sauce, or lobster sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lobster and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,095 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Boiled Salmon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean the salmon thoroughly without soaking it in water.

  2. Rub a little coarse sea salt into the body of the salmon.

  3. Flour a cloth and wrap the salmon in it, securing it with pins.

Cook and serve

  1. Place the wrapped salmon in boiling water.

  2. Boil for about 30 minutes after the water returns to a boil.

  3. Serve with drawn butter and eggs, or lemon fish sauce, or lobster sauce.

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. Lobster + saucetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,095 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, 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
The main protein, cooked gently in water so it stays moist and flakes easily.
Flour
Dusted on the cloth so the wrapping releases cleanly and does not stick to the fish.
Eggs
Served alongside the fish as a rich accompaniment, adding body and flavour to the sauce.
Drawn butter
Adds fat and richness to the fish, balancing its lean, delicate flesh.

The step that matters

Boil for about 30 minutes after the water returns to a boil. Once the water is boiling, keeping it at a steady simmer rather than a hard churn cooks the salmon evenly. Timing from the return to a boil, not from when the fish goes in, prevents overcooking, which dries out and toughens the flesh.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, flour, butter, egg, fish sauce, lobster, sauce):

  1. Coconutfits about as well
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Limefits about as well
  4. Avocadofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, flour, butter, egg, fish sauce, lobster, sauce. 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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