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Boiled Salmon

A boiled salmon served with potato balls, parsley, and optional fried crayfish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Salmon and cheese work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and 300 recipes mention both. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

The recipe

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Contains: milk, fish, shellfish (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Scale and draw the salmon, then place it on the drainer of a fish kettle, belly side down.

  2. Fill the cavity with wet cheese cloth to help retain its shape.

  3. Carefully remove the cloth from the center to avoid breaking the fish.

  4. Tie the fish securely to the drainer with thread.

Boil and serve

  1. Boil the fish in salted water until cooked through.

  2. At serving time, drain the fish well and place it on a platter using a fish trowel.

  3. Garnish both sides with steamed potato balls.

  4. On one end of the dish, place a bunch of parsley leaves, and on the other end, add fried crayfish or more parsley leaves.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Salmon + cheesetop 10% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together300 recipes

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

  2. Potato + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,855 recipes

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

  3. Salmon + crayfishtop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together89 recipes

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

  4. Cheese + potatotop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together957 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  5. Potato + crayfishtop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together24 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

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 and is cooked through by gentle boiling.
Potato balls
Provide a soft, starchy garnish that contrasts with the firm fish.

The step that matters

Carefully remove the cloth from the center. Cooked salmon flakes and breaks apart easily, so pulling the cloth out slowly and steadily keeps the fish's shape and prevents tearing the flesh.

Flavor stand-ins for the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, cheese, potato, crayfish):

  1. Dillabout as good a flavor fit
  2. Garlicabout as good a flavor fit
  3. Thymeabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, cheese, potato, crayfish. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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