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Pickled Salmon

Pickled Salmon is a preserved fish cured with salt and vinegar, served with fennel.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Salmon and fennel work together. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 253 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Pickled Salmon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the salmon

  1. Wipe the salmon well on the scaly side and remove the gills.

  2. Cut off a piece of the tail, about 6 to 8 inches long.

  3. Split the salmon open at the back and through the belly to make two sides.

  4. Remove the liver and clean the inside with a cloth.

  5. Sprinkle coarse sea salt over the fish and let it sit for 3 hours; let the tail sit for 2 hours longer.

  6. Rinse the fish in fresh water and dry it well.

Cook and pickle

  1. Cut the fish into pieces, leaving a handsome head or jowl.

  2. Place the pieces in a fish kettle drainer covered with water.

  3. Mix the vinegar with the water and bring to a boil for 10 minutes.

  4. Simmer the fish until it easily leaves the bone, then remove it and let it cool.

  5. Skim off excess liquid and tie the liver in a piece of linen rag.

  6. Simmer the liver with black peppercorns in the liquor for 30 minutes.

  7. Pour the lukewarm liquor over the fish in a deep dish, ensuring it is covered.

  8. Serve with fennel if available.

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. Salmon + fenneltop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together253 recipes

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

  2. Vinegar + fenneltop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together505 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Salmon + vinegartop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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, becoming firm and flaky when simmered.
Coarse sea salt
Draws out moisture and firms the flesh before rinsing and cooking.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that sharpens the flavour and helps preserve the pickled liquor.
Black peppercorns
Adds a mild, aromatic pungency to the simmered liquor.

The step that matters

Simmer the fish until it easily leaves the bone. Simmering past the point of doneness toughens and dries the flesh, while stopping too early leaves it raw near the bone. Checking that it flakes away easily shows the protein has set evenly.

Swap the fennel

The recipe marks fennel as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, vinegar):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Fennelthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, vinegar. 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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