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Salmon Mould

A chilled salmon gelatin dish seasoned with salt, pepper, cayenne, vinegar, tarragon vinegar, and mace.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and tarragon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,399 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Salmon Mould

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the salmon

  1. Remove all bones and skin from the cold salmon.

Make the gelatine mixture

  1. Soak the gelatine in a small amount of cold water until softened.

  2. Dissolve the gelatine and mix in salt, pepper, cayenne, common vinegar, tarragon vinegar, and ground mace.

  3. Add the salmon to the mixture and combine well.

Set and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a wet mould and refrigerate until set.

  2. Turn out the mould onto a bed of lettuce before serving.

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 + tarragontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Vinegar + tarragontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,547 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Tarragon + macetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together234 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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
Provides the main body and flesh of the mould.
Gelatine
Sets the mixture so it holds its shape when turned out.
Common vinegar
Adds sharpness that balances the richness of the fish.
Tarragon vinegar
Adds a herbal acidity that gives the mould aroma.

The step that matters

Pour the mixture into a wet mould and refrigerate until set. Gelatine must be fully dissolved and the mixture cooled only enough to pour, then chilled until firm. Chilling sets the gelatine network that holds the salmon together, and a dry mould lets the set mould stick and tear when turned out.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, pepper, vinegar, tarragon):

  1. Dillfits better
  2. Fennelfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, pepper, vinegar, tarragon. 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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