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Boiled Salmon, Cucumber Sauce

A boiled salmon served with a cucumber, lemon, and dill sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and dill match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 976 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Boiled Salmon, Cucumber Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare and cook the salmon

  1. Clean and gut the salmon, then season with salt and pepper.

  2. Boil the salmon in salted water until cooked through, about 15-20 minutes.

Make the cucumber sauce

  1. While the salmon is cooking, peel and dice the cucumber.

  2. In a bowl, mix the diced cucumber with lemon juice and chopped dill.

Serve

  1. Serve the boiled salmon with the cucumber sauce on the side.

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. Lemon + dilltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together976 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Cucumber + dilltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together530 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Pepper + dilltop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,630 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Cucumber + lemontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Salmon
Forms the main protein; gentle boiling cooks it through while keeping the flesh moist.
Cucumber
Adds cool, crisp texture and fresh moisture to the sauce.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the cucumber and balances the rich fish.

The step that matters

Boil the salmon until cooked through. Overcooking in boiling water makes salmon dry and firm, while undercooking leaves it unsafe to eat. Checking that the flesh is opaque and flakes easily helps you stop at the right point.

Swap the cucumber

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, pepper, lemon, dill):

  1. Cucumberthe original
  2. Horseradishfits about as well
  3. Carrotfits about as well
  4. Spinachfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, pepper, lemon, dill. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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