Why it works: Fish and grass work together. They rank in the top 34% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3 recipes. Both carry 2-octenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Kipper
Ingredients
Directions
Cure
Immerse fish in a shallow tub with soft water and coarse sea salt for 24 hours.
Remove one fish, scale side down, and clean the red side with scalding hot water and a soft brush.
Use a small knife to remove loose films from the belly and vent.
Brush the skin side until clean, paying attention to the fins and gills.
Soak and dry
Soak the fish in cold water with dissolved washing soda, changing the water every 12 hours for 36 hours.
After soaking, let the fish sit in pure cold water for 6 hours.
Hang the fish to dry for 12 hours, brushing the red side smooth.
Stretch the back open with wooden splints and hang to dry in a draft.
If the inside faces become clammy, present them to the fire.
Smoke
Once well-dried, smoke the fish using oak lops or sawdust mixture.
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.
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Fish + grasstop 34% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together3 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-octenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Fish
- Forms the flesh that is cured, dried and smoked into the finished product.
- Coarse sea salt
- Draws out moisture and seasons the flesh during the initial brine.
- Washing soda
- Dissolved in the soak water to alter the surface of the skin and help clean it.
- Oak lops or sawdust
- Provides the smoke that flavours and preserves the dried fish.
- Beech chips
- Adds smoke flavour as part of the smoking mixture.
- Peat
- Adds smoke as part of the smoking mixture, colouring and flavouring the fish.
The step that matters
Drying before smoking. If the fish is not thoroughly dried before smoking, moisture trapped in the flesh can keep it clammy and slow the drying that preserves it. Checking the inside faces and drying them fully before smoking helps the smoke set well.
“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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