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Salmon Soup

A broth made from fresh salmon, water, butter, and anchovy, served with flaked salmon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Salmon and anchovy work together. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 535 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Salmon Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the salmon into two equal pieces and clean them thoroughly.

  2. Bring a pot of water to a boil without adding salt.

Cook the salmon

  1. Add the salmon and boil for about 20 minutes.

  2. Remove the skin and take the flesh off the bones while hot.

  3. Flake one piece into bite-sized pieces and set aside.

Pound the salmon

  1. Pound the other piece with a little butter and the anchovy in a mortar.

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Butter + anchovytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,697 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Salmon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,481 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
Provides the main body and flaky, tender protein texture of the soup.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy mouthfeel when pounded with the fish.
Anchovy
Adds savory depth that rounds out and deepens the flavor of the fish.

The step that matters

Boil the salmon for about 20 minutes. Boiling beyond the stated time toughens the fish proteins, leaving the flesh dry and chalky instead of tender and flaky. Keep the water at a steady boil and check the fish for doneness so it stays moist.

“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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