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To Boil Salmon

Boiled salmon served with dressed cucumber and anchovy, shrimp, or lobster sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Anchovy and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,057 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

To Boil Salmon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash and scale the salmon.

Boil and serve

  1. Place the fish in boiling water and add coarse sea salt.

  2. Boil moderately fast for half an hour.

  3. Serve immediately on a hot napkin to preserve flavor and appearance.

  4. Accompany with dressed cucumber, anchovy, shrimp, or lobster sauce.

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. Anchovy + saucetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Anchovy + lobstertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together470 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  3. Sauce + lobstertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,095 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Shrimp + lobstertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together403 recipes

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

  5. Anchovy + shrimptop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together440 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).

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, cooked gently in simmering water until flaky.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the poaching water so the fish is flavored as it cooks.

The step that matters

Boil moderately fast for half an hour. Boiling too hard can break the delicate flesh apart and toughen it, while too gentle a heat cooks unevenly. A steady, moderate simmer keeps the fish moist and intact.

Swap the cucumber

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, anchovy, sauce, shrimp, lobster):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Mustardfits about as well
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, anchovy, sauce, shrimp, lobster. 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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