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Salmon, Boiled

A boiled salmon seasoned with coarse sea salt, turnip, onion, leek, celery, peppercorns, and bouquet garni.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and leek match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,046 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Salmon, Boiled

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the court-bouillon

  1. Add enough water to cover the fish in a fish kettle.

  2. Bring the water to a boil.

  3. Add the salt and prepared vegetables.

  4. Cook gently for 30 minutes.

  5. Wash, clean, and scale the fish.

  6. Tie the fish loosely in a piece of muslin.

  7. Remove any scum from the court-bouillon.

Poach and serve

  1. Add the fish to the court-bouillon.

  2. Boil gently until cooked: 10 minutes per pound for thick pieces, 7 minutes for the tail end.

  3. Drain the fish.

  4. Place the fish on a folded napkin.

  5. Garnish with parsley.

  6. Serve with sliced cucumber and Hollandaise or another suitable 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. Turnip + leektop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,046 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Leek + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together360 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Salmon
Forms the main body of the dish, cooking into moist, flaky flesh in the gentle poaching liquid.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the court-bouillon so the fish is flavoured as it poaches.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and depth to the court-bouillon.
Leek
Contributes mild, savoury aroma to the poaching liquid.

The step that matters

Remove any scum from the court-bouillon. Impurities that rise to the surface of the liquid can cloud the broth and mar the fish's appearance and flavour. Skimming before the fish goes in keeps the liquid clear, and the gentle simmer keeps the salmon tender rather than tough and broken.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, turnip, leek, celery, parsley, thyme):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, turnip, leek, celery, parsley, thyme. 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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