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Salmon

A boiled salmon served with head and tail, butter, anchovy sauce, horseradish, and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Horse and radish work together. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 529 recipes. Both carry 2-methylbutyraldehyde, which smells malty, chocolate. The science ↓

Salmon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the head and tail from the salmon and cut the body into 1.5‑inch thick slices.

  2. Soak the slices in a large pan of water with a handful of coarse sea salt.

Cook

  1. Boil the head and tail in a large deep stew‑pan with some salt for 10 minutes.

  2. Skim the water clean, then add the salmon slices and boil until cooked.

Serve

  1. Arrange the head and tail in a dish and place the slices around them.

  2. Serve with melted butter and anchovy sauce, garnished with horseradish and sliced 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. Horse + radishtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together529 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  2. Radish + lemontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together174 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Anchovy + horsetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together35 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Salmon + anchovytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together535 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + anchovytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,697 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
Provides the main flesh, which firms and turns opaque as its proteins set during boiling.
Butter
Melted and served with the fish, it adds richness and a silky, moist mouthfeel.
Anchovy
Adds a salty, savoury depth to the sauce that complements the mild fish.

The step that matters

Skim the water clean, then add the salmon slices and boil until cooked.. Skimming removes foam and impurities so the cooking liquid stays clear. Boiling the salmon too hard or too long toughens its proteins, making the flesh dry and grainy.

“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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