Skip to main content
Main

Boiled Salmon, Egg-sauce

A boiled salmon served with a butter and lemon sauce, garnished with chopped hard-boiled eggs and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Boiled Salmon, Egg-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.

Poach the salmon

  1. Fill a large pot with water and add salt.

  2. Bring to a boil.

  3. Add the whole salmon and cook for about 15-20 minutes until done.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. In a small saucepan, melt the butter and stir in the lemon juice.

  2. Remove the salmon from the pot and place on a serving platter.

  3. Drizzle the butter and lemon sauce over the salmon.

  4. Garnish with chopped hard-boiled eggs and parsley.

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 + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  3. Salmon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  4. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Salmon + eggtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,485 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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 it in water keeps it moist and tender.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the sauce a smooth, silky mouthfeel.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich butter and balances the fish.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add a soft, creamy texture and mild richness to the finished dish.

The step that matters

Cooking the salmon until done. Salmon overcooks quickly, and once the proteins tighten past the point of doneness the flesh turns dry and firm. Checking the thickest part for flakiness at the early end of the time range helps keep it moist.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Capersfits about as well
  3. Dillfits about as well
  4. Tarragonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, butter, lemon, egg. 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.

You might also like

Lemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesSalmon SaladSalmon Salad155 recipesSalmon CroquettesSalmon Croquettes129 recipesCanned SalmonCanned Salmon14 recipes