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Berwick Receipt for Boiling Salmon

A boiled salmon prepared by cutting, pickling, and cooking in salted water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Berwick Receipt for Boiling Salmon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Cut off the tail of the salmon near the last fin.

  2. Cut the fish along the back, keeping the bone on one side, and then cut into pieces of ½ pound each.

  3. Wash the blood out of the fish in cold water, leaving the scales on.

Boil and serve

  1. Make a pickle with enough salt in water to float an egg.

  2. Bring the pickle to a boil, then add the fish and boil quickly for 15 minutes.

  3. Skim off any scum that rises during boiling.

  4. Serve with lobster, melted butter, 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

What each ingredient does

Salmon
Is the main protein; its flesh firms and turns opaque as it cooks in the boiling pickle.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the poaching liquid and, at this strength, gives the brine enough density to float an egg.

The step that matters

Skim off any scum that rises during boiling. Scum is coagulated protein and impurities that rise to the surface. Removing it keeps the liquid clear and the fish flavour clean, and the boil should be kept steady so the fish cooks through evenly.

“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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