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Boiled Salmon

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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.

  4. Wrap the salmon in it, securing it with pins.

Cook and serve

  1. Bring a pot of water to a boil.

  2. Add the wrapped salmon.

  3. Boil the salmon for about 30 minutes after it starts boiling.

  4. 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
Forms the main body of the dish, cooked gently in boiling water until flaky.
Drawn butter
Adds richness and a silky fat to the fish.
Eggs
Adds richness and body to the sauce served with the fish.
Lemon fish sauce
Adds acidity that brightens the mild flavor of the fish.
Lobster sauce
Adds savory richness and flavor to the served fish.

The step that matters

Boil for about 30 minutes after the water starts boiling. Timing starts only once the water boils. Overcooking pushes the proteins too far, making the salmon dry and tough, while undercooking leaves the center raw. Keeping the water at a steady boil helps the cooking stay even.

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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