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Boiled Salmon

A whole salmon is boiled after being salted and wrapped in flour, 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. Dust a cloth with flour, wrap the salmon in it, and secure it.

Boil and serve

  1. Bring a pot of water to a boil and add the wrapped salmon.

  2. Boil the salmon for about 30 minutes after the water starts boiling.

  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
Is the main protein; boiling in its cloth cooks it gently and keeps it moist.
Flour
Dusted on the cloth so the wrapping does not stick to the fish skin.

The step that matters

Boil the salmon for about 30 minutes after the water starts boiling. Once the water is at a full boil, the timing starts. Boiling too long toughens the proteins and dries the flesh, so check that the fish is just cooked through.

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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