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Collared Salmon

A salmon fillet seasoned, rolled, and simmered in vinegar and water, served cold with salad and aspic jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and shallot are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,898 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Collared Salmon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the bone from the salmon.

  2. Sprinkle the inside with salt, pepper, mace, and cayenne.

  3. Roll the salmon up and bind it firmly with tape.

Poach

  1. Place it in a fish kettle and cover with a mixture of vinegar and water (2 parts water to 1 part vinegar).

  2. Add bay leaves, herbs, and shallot.

  3. Simmer gently for one hour.

  4. Remove from heat and let it cool partially in the liquid.

Serve

  1. Serve cold, garnished with salad and aspic jelly.

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 + shallottop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,898 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Vinegar + shallottop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,374 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. Mace + shallottop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).

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 provides the flesh that sets firm when poached.
Vinegar
Adds acidity to the poaching liquid, brightening the flavour of the fish.
Bay leaves
Contribute an aromatic herbal flavour to the poaching liquid.
Shallot
Adds a mild onion-like aroma to the poaching liquid.

The step that matters

Simmer gently for one hour. Boiling rather than simmering toughens and breaks up the salmon proteins, so the fish turns dry and ragged. A gentle simmer cooks it evenly and keeps the flesh moist and intact.

Swap the mace

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

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

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