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To Boil Salmon

A method of cooking salmon by boiling it in salted water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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To Boil Salmon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Scale, empty, and wash the salmon thoroughly, removing all blood from the inside.

Poach

  1. Stir 8 oz of salt into 1 gallon of boiling water in a large pot.

  2. Boil the water quickly for 1–2 minutes, then remove any scum.

  3. Add the salmon to the pot and boil moderately fast for 30 minutes for small fish or 1 hour for larger fish.

  4. Do not leave the salmon in the water after cooking to preserve its flavor and appearance.

Serve

  1. Serve the salmon on a hot napkin with dressed cucumber and sauces such as anchovy, shrimp, or lobster, along with melted butter.

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

What each ingredient does

Salmon
The main protein; gentle heat turns its flesh opaque and flaky.
Butter (in the method)
Melted butter adds richness and fat to the served fish.

The step that matters

Timing the boil. Salmon keeps cooking from its own residual heat after leaving the pot. Leaving it in the hot water past the cooking time dries out and toughens the flesh, so it should be removed once done.

“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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