Why it works: Salmon and sugar work together. They rank in the top 35% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 931 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓
Orisd or Smoked Salmon
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare and cure
Remove the entrails and roe from the salmon, then scale it.
Rub the outside and inside of the fish with common salt and hang it to drain for 24 hours.
Pound together the coarse salt and brown sugar, then rub this mixture over the salmon.
Place the salmon on a large dish for 2 days.
Dry and smoke
After 2 days, rub the salmon again with common salt.
In 24 hours, it will be ready to dry.
Wipe the salmon well, stretch it open with two sticks, and hang it in a cool place or a smokehouse with a smoldering wood fire.
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.
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Salmon + sugartop 35% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together931 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Salmon
- Forms the flesh that is cured, dried and smoked into the finished product.
- Common salt
- Draws out moisture and firms the flesh while preserving it during curing.
- Coarse salt
- Adds further curing action, drawing out moisture from the fish over the curing period.
- Brown sugar
- Adds sweetness that balances the salt and contributes to a richer flavor.
The step that matters
Wipe the salmon well before hanging it to smoke. A dry surface helps a thin tacky skin, called a pellicle, form, which lets smoke adhere evenly. Leftover moisture slows drying and can leave the surface uneven.
“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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