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To Boil Salmon

A whole salmon is boiled in spring water with coarse sea salt, served with butter and sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Salmon and lobster work together. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 313 recipes. Both carry 2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, green. The science ↓

To Boil Salmon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the water

  1. Fill a fish kettle with enough spring water to cover the salmon.

  2. Bring the water to a boil and add a handful of coarse sea salt.

Poach and serve

  1. Wash the salmon well and place it in the boiling water.

  2. Boil gently for about 15 minutes per pound of fish.

  3. Serve with melted butter and your choice of 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. Salmon + lobstertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together313 recipes

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

  2. Salmon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,481 recipes

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

  3. Butter + lobstertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,609 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
Its protein firms and turns opaque as it cooks, setting into flakes.

The step that matters

Boil gently for about 15 minutes per pound of fish.. Once the water is boiling, keep it at a gentle simmer rather than a rolling boil. Vigorous boiling agitates the fish and can toughen the protein and break the flesh apart.

“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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