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Boiled Salmon

Boiled salmon served with a butter‑parsley‑lemon sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Boiled Salmon

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the salmon

  1. Wrap the salmon in a cheesecloth bag.

  2. Boil in slightly salted water for 15 minutes per pound.

  3. Remove the salmon carefully and place it on a platter.

Finish and serve

  1. In a small bowl, mix the drawn butter with minced parsley and lemon juice.

  2. Pour the butter mixture over the salmon and serve.

  3. Garnish with parsley.

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  3. Salmon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,481 recipes

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

  4. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Salmon + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,918 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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, cooked gently in simmering water so it stays moist and tender.
Drawn butter
Adds richness and moisture, coating the salmon and carrying the flavour of the sauce.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich butter and balances the flavour of the fish.

The step that matters

Boiling the salmon. Salmon cooked above a gentle simmer toughens and dries out as its proteins tighten. Keeping the water only lightly salted and at a steady gentle boil, then removing the fish promptly, helps it stay moist and tender.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, butter, lemon):

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Capersfits about as well
  3. Dillfits about as well
  4. Thymefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, butter, lemon. 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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