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Salmon, Boiled

A whole salmon boiled with salt, served with lemon, parsley, and optional sauces.

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

Salmon, Boiled

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Scale and clean the salmon, ensuring no blood remains inside.

  2. Place the fish in a large pot and cover it with cold water, adding the salt.

Cook

  1. Bring the water to a boil, skimming off any scum that forms.

  2. Reduce heat and let the fish simmer until the meat separates easily from the bone, about 8 minutes per pound for thick salmon or 6 minutes for thin salmon.

  3. Once cooked, drain the fish and keep it warm with cloths if not serving immediately.

Serve

  1. Serve on a hot napkin, garnished with cut lemon and parsley, and provide lobster or shrimp sauce and melted butter on the side.

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. Cucumber + peastop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together629 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Parsley + cucumbertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,564 recipes

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

  4. Lemon + cucumbertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Salmon + peastop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together375 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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; its flesh firms and flakes as it cooks in simmering water.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the cooking water and flavors the fish as it poaches.
Lobster or shrimp sauce
Adds a rich, savory accompaniment that complements the mild flavor of the fish.
Plain melted butter
Adds fat and richness to each bite of the mild poached fish.

The step that matters

Keep the simmer gentle. A rolling boil toughens the proteins and makes the flesh dry and ragged, so the water should only simmer once the fish is in.

Swap the cucumber

The recipe marks cucumber as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, fish, lemon, parsley, lobster, butter, peas):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Asparagusfits about as well
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, fish, lemon, parsley, lobster, butter, peas. 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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