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Boiled Salmon

A whole salmon is boiled in salted water with vinegar, then served with egg sauce and capers, garnished with herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Capers and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,550 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Boiled Salmon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and boil

  1. Sew the fish in a piece of thin muslin or mosquito-netting.

  2. Boil in salted water with 2 tablespoons of vinegar.

  3. Cook for 12 minutes per pound.

Serve

  1. Carefully remove the cloth and place the fish on a hot platter.

  2. Pour a few spoonfuls of egg sauce mixed with 1 tablespoon of capers over the fish.

  3. Serve the remaining sauce in a gravy boat.

  4. Garnish with nasturtiums, parsley, or cresses.

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. Capers + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,550 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Sauce + caperstop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together678 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Salmon + caperstop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together458 recipes

    Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).

  4. Salmon + eggtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,485 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Vinegar + parsleytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,477 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Whole salmon
Forms the main body of the dish, cooked gently in simmering water until just firm.
Vinegar
Adds a light acidity to the poaching water that brightens the mild flavour of the fish.
Capers
Add a sharp, briny contrast that cuts through the richness of the egg sauce.

The step that matters

Cook for 12 minutes per pound. Overcooking dries out and toughens salmon, while undercooking leaves it unsafe and raw at the centre. Timing by weight, and keeping the water at a gentle simmer rather than a hard boil, helps the flesh cook evenly and stay moist.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, vinegar, egg, sauce, capers):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Dillfits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Garlicfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, vinegar, egg, sauce, capers. 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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