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Boiled Salmon

A whole salmon or fillet boiled in salted water with horseradish, served with lemon, mashed potatoes, and vinegar‑sliced cucumbers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Horseradish and cucumber match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 640 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Boiled Salmon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Shape the fish into an 'S' by threading a string through the tail, center, and head, or fold it in a clean cloth if using a fillet.

  2. Make two or three slanting cuts on each side to prevent the skin from breaking.

Boil and serve

  1. Bring 4 quarts of water to a boil, add ½ cup of coarse sea salt, and skim off any scum.

  2. Add the fish and a small piece of horseradish to the boiling water.

  3. Boil for about 15 minutes per pound until fully cooked.

  4. Serve with lobster or white parsley sauce, garnished with sliced lemon.

  5. Accompany with mashed potatoes and cucumbers sliced in vinegar.

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. Horseradish + cucumbertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together640 recipes

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

  2. Horseradish + potatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Cucumber + vinegartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,734 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  4. Horseradish + lemontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,155 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Potato + cucumbertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together481 recipes

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

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 of the dish, cooking to a moist, flaky texture in simmering water.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the cooking water, lightly flavouring the fish as it poaches.
Horseradish
Adds a sharp, pungent aroma that complements the mild, rich flavour of the fish.

The step that matters

Boil for about 15 minutes per pound until fully cooked. Simmering rather than vigorously boiling keeps the flesh tender and moist. Overcooking makes salmon dry and firm as its proteins tighten. Check doneness by whether the flesh flakes easily at the thickest point.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, horseradish, potato, cucumber, vinegar):

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Cherryfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, horseradish, potato, cucumber, vinegar. 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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