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Potted Salmon

A whole salmon seasoned with salt, pepper, mace, cloves, brown sugar, bay leaves, and butter, baked slowly and served with clarified butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Potted Salmon

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Split the salmon down the back and belly to create two sides.

  2. Scale and wipe the salmon clean, avoiding water contact.

  3. Sprinkle coarse sea salt on the salmon and let it sit until the salt melts away.

  4. Rub black pepper, mace, cloves, and brown sugar over the red side of the salmon.

Bake

  1. Add bay leaves cut into pieces and place the salmon in a pan with melted butter.

  2. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) until done.

Pot and serve

  1. Pour off the gravy, remove the fish, and let it drain on a clean cloth.

  2. Press the salmon into pots and pour clarified butter over it.

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. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Salmon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,481 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Pepper and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 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 its flesh sets into a firm, flakeable texture when baked.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture while the fish bakes in the pan.
Clarified butter
Seals the top of the potted fish, adding richness and helping preserve it.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the surface brown slightly during baking.

The step that matters

Bake in a slow oven until done. A low, slow oven cooks the fish gently so it stays moist and tender rather than drying out. Overcooking squeezes out moisture and makes the flesh dry and crumbly.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, pepper, clove, sugar, butter):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, pepper, clove, sugar, butter. 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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