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To Boil Salmon

A whole salmon is boiled in salted water and served with shrimp or anchovy sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Salmon and shrimp work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 819 recipes. Both carry 2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, green. The science ↓

To Boil Salmon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean the salmon carefully.

  2. Fill a pot with enough water to cover the fish completely.

  3. Add a handful of salt and bring the water to a gentle boil.

Cook and serve

  1. Place the salmon in the boiling water and cook until done.

  2. Remove the salmon from the water immediately to avoid overcooking.

  3. Serve with shrimp or anchovy 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 + shrimptop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together819 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + shrimptop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,692 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylethanol (rose, floral).

  3. Salmon + peppertop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,446 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Salmon
The main ingredient; gentle poaching in water cooks its protein evenly, keeping the flesh moist and flaky.

The step that matters

Remove the salmon from the water immediately. Fish proteins tighten as they cook, and past doneness they squeeze out moisture and turn dry. Taking the salmon out as soon as it is done keeps the flesh tender and juicy.

“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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