Why it works: Salmon and fish are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,078 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Salmon to Boil
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Empty and wash the salmon, handling it gently to avoid removing the scales.
In a fish kettle, add enough water to cover the fish and stir in the salt.
Boil and cook
Bring the water to a boil, then add the salmon and boil for 5 minutes.
Add 2 cups of cold water to reduce the temperature and move the kettle to a cooler part of the fire.
Let the salmon cook below boiling point for the appropriate time based on its weight.
Rest and serve
Remove the kettle from the fire and let the salmon stand for 10 minutes before serving.
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.
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Salmon + fishtop 11% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,078 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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 to a moist, flaky texture when kept below boiling.
- Coarse sea salt
- Seasons the poaching water so the fish is flavoured as it cooks.
- Cold water
- Lowers the temperature of the boiling water so the fish cooks gently instead of toughening.
The step that matters
Adding cold water and holding the cooking temperature below boiling. Boiling vigorously toughens and breaks up the delicate muscle fibres of fish. Keeping the water just below boiling lets the salmon cook evenly and stay moist and tender.
“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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