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Boiled Salmon

A whole salmon boiled with vinegar, onion, thyme, mace, peppercorns, and salt, then garnished with lemon, parsley, and cucumber.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,973 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Boiled Salmon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Clean and scald the salmon.

  2. Butter a piece of muslin and roll the fish in it.

Poach

  1. Place the fish in a fish kettle and cover with slightly salted water.

  2. Add ½ cup of French vinegar, sliced onion, thyme, mace, and peppercorns.

  3. Boil the salmon for 10 minutes per pound, adjusting time for thinner fish.

Serve

  1. Once cooked, remove the muslin and place the fish on a folded napkin.

  2. Garnish with cut lemon and parsley.

  3. Serve with Hollandaise sauce, lobster, or any suitable sauce, along with sliced cucumber.

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. Thyme + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

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

  2. Onion + thymetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Salmon + fishtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,078 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Butter + fishtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Vinegar + oniontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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, cooking through gently in the simmering liquid.
French vinegar
Adds acidity to the poaching liquid, brightening the flavour of the fish.
Onion
Adds aromatic flavour to the poaching liquid as it simmers.

The step that matters

Keeping the boil controlled while poaching. Boiling the salmon hard can toughen and break up the delicate flesh. Timing by weight matters because overcooked salmon becomes dry and loses its texture.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, vinegar, onion, butter, thyme, fish, 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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