Skip to main content
Main

Boiled Salmon

A simple boiled salmon served with fennel, lemon, parsley, lobster, or tartare sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Lemon and parsley 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

Prepare

  1. Fill a large pot with water and add 1 tablespoon of salt for every 2 quarts of water and a little vinegar.

  2. Wash and clean the salmon thoroughly.

  3. Place the salmon on a strainer.

  4. Bring the water to a boil.

Cook and serve

  1. Add the salmon to the boiling water.

  2. Let it simmer gently for 8 minutes per pound.

  3. When done, transfer the salmon to a hot dish lined with a serviette.

  4. Garnish with fennel and lemon, and serve with parsley, lobster, or tartare sauce.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Fennel + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together625 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Fennel + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together723 recipes

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

  4. Lobster + saucetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,095 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Salmon + lobstertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together313 recipes

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

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; gentle simmering keeps its flesh moist and tender.
Salt
Seasons the cooking water so the salmon is flavoured as it poaches.

The step that matters

Simmer gently for 8 minutes per pound. A rolling boil toughens and breaks up salmon proteins, while a gentle simmer cooks the fish evenly and keeps it moist and tender.

“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.

You might also like

Lemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesLobster SauceLobster Sauce174 recipesSalmon SaladSalmon Salad155 recipesSalmon CroquettesSalmon Croquettes129 recipes