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To Boil Salmon

A method for boiling a whole salmon with salt, lemon, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Salmon and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,918 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

To Boil Salmon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Stun the salmon with a heavy blow to the head.

  2. Make parallel cuts on each side of the salmon down to the backbone.

  3. Place the salmon in a cold spring or under a waterfall for 10 minutes.

  4. Remove the gills, open the belly, and wash the inside of the salmon.

Cook and serve

  1. Boil water with enough salt to float an egg.

  2. Immerse the salmon in the boiling brine and cook for 7.5 minutes per pound.

  3. Serve the salmon with the cooking water, a little salt, and a squeeze of lemon.

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. 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
The main protein; it turns opaque and flaky as its proteins set during gentle boiling.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the cooking water and gives the brine enough salinity to float an egg.
Lemon
Adds acidity that brightens the mild, rich flavour of the fish.

The step that matters

Immerse the salmon in the boiling brine. Cooking time is set per pound, so overcooking dries and toughens the flesh as proteins tighten. Check for flakiness at the thickest part rather than relying on the clock alone.

“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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