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Chaudfroid of Salmon

A poached salmon served with a chilled sauce of anchovies, herbs, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 20 ingredients
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Why it works: Chive and capers match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 245 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Chaudfroid of Salmon

Ingredients

Directions

Poach the salmon

  1. Combine salmon and salt in a pot, cover with water, and boil gently for 1 hour.

  2. Strain the liquid and let it cool.

  3. Place the salmon in a stewpan and pour the sauce over it.

  4. Simmer the salmon at the edge of the fire until cooked.

  5. Let it cool in the sauce.

Make the chilled sauce

  1. Wash and bone the anchovies.

  2. Chop the anchovies with chives, gherkins, capers, tarragon, and parsley.

  3. Combine the chopped ingredients with yolks of hard-boiled eggs in a mortar and pound well.

  4. Slowly add butter, salad oil, tarragon vinegar, and season with salt and pepper.

  5. Pass the mixture through a fine sieve.

  6. Refrigerate until firm.

Assemble and serve

  1. Fry the slice of bread in butter until golden brown.

  2. Spread some of the mixture over the bread.

  3. Place salmon on the bread.

  4. Cover with a thin layer of the mixture, smoothing it with a knife.

  5. Decorate the top with cut shapes of hard-boiled egg whites and truffles.

  6. Sprinkle with lobster spawn.

  7. Garnish with croutons of aspic jelly.

  8. Serve.

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. Chive + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together245 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Capers + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together379 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Tarragon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Chive + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together589 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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 and is cooked gently so it stays moist and tender.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Bind the chopped herbs and anchovies into a smooth, spreadable sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy texture to the sauce and fried bread.
Salad oil
Emulsifies with the yolks to give the sauce body and a silky texture.
Anchovies
Add a salty, savoury depth that seasons the sauce.
Bread
Fried in butter until golden, it gives a crisp base that supports the salmon.

The step that matters

Simmer the salmon at the edge of the fire until cooked. Keeping the liquid just below a boil cooks the fish gently; vigorous boiling toughens the proteins and dries the flesh.

“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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