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Salmon— to Pickle Undressed

A whole salmon is pickled in vinegar, water, cloves, mace, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and pepper 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 ↓

Salmon— to Pickle Undressed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the salmon

  1. Scale the salmon and rub it with a dry cloth.

  2. Scrape away all blood from the backbone without washing the fish.

  3. Cut off the head and divide the fish into 6-inch pieces.

Cook the fish

  1. Boil the pieces in a mixture of vinegar and water with cloves and mace until cooked.

  2. Skim the boiling liquid carefully.

  3. Remove the fish and pour the cooking liquid into a jar to cool.

Pickle and serve

  1. Once cooled, add the fish back to the liquid with an additional ⅓ cup of vinegar and whole pepper.

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. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  4. Vinegar + clovetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,386 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Mace + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

Mace and pepper 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 absorbs the pickling liquid's flavour.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the fish and gives it a sharp, tangy flavour.

The step that matters

Skim the boiling liquid carefully. Proteins and fat that rise to the surface during boiling can cloud the liquid and leave an unpleasant taste in the fish. Removing them keeps the pickling liquid clear and clean-flavoured.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Dillfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

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