Name: Boiled Salmon
Ingredients: 1 small whole salmon or middle cut from a large salmon; Cream Sauce or Caper Sauce; hard-boiled eggs; lemon slices; Sauce Tartare

Why it works: Cream and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,787 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Boiled Salmon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Prepare the salmon as you would for boiled fish.

Serve

If serving hot, accompany with Cream Sauce or Caper Sauce.
For cold service, garnish with hard-boiled eggs and lemon slices.
Serve with Sauce Tartare for a summer luncheon dish.

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.

Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,787 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Salmon + creamtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,401 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Salmon + eggtop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,485 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Salmon + lemontop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,918 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together44,316 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

Egg and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 44,316 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 carries its flavour and texture.
Hard-boiled eggs: Add a firm, mild garnish that contrasts with the soft flesh of the fish.
Lemon slices: Add acidity and fresh aroma that brighten the rich fish.