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Salmon, Pickled

A salmon preserved by boiling, then pickled in a vinegar and spice brine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Salmon, Pickled

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the salmon

  1. Clean, scale, and boil the salmon in the usual way.

  2. Drain and let it cool.

Make the pickle

  1. Combine equal parts of the water from boiling and vinegar to cover the fish.

  2. In a saucepan, add the water-vinegar mixture, cloves, mace, peppercorns, and allspice. Bring to a boil and skim the mixture.

  3. Stir in the butter until dissolved.

  4. Pour it over the fish.

Store

  1. Store in a cool place until needed. It will keep for several days.

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 + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Mace + allspicetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Vinegar + allspicetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,548 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Salmon
Is the main body of the dish, cooked first and then preserved in the pickle.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens flavour and helps preserve the fish in the pickle.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, mellow mouthfeel to the pickling liquid.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

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