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Salmon, Soused

A pickled salmon prepared with vinegar, water, ginger, peppercorns, cloves, mace, cayenne pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,038 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Salmon, Soused

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pickle

  1. In a saucepan, combine the vinegar and water.

  2. Add the ginger, peppercorns, cloves, mace, cayenne, and salt.

  3. Bring the mixture to a boil and let it boil for 10 minutes.

  4. Remove from heat and let it cool.

Pickle and serve

  1. Place the cold cooked salmon in a deep dish.

  2. Strain the cooled mixture over the salmon.

  3. Let the salmon sit in a cool place for several hours.

  4. Serve with some of the pickle in the dish.

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. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Ginger + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,800 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Ginger + macetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,152 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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 and acidity.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves and sharpens the salmon as it marinates.
Salt
Seasons the pickle and helps draw flavour into the fish.

The step that matters

Letting the salmon sit in the cool pickle for several hours. The salmon needs time for the acidic, spiced liquid to penetrate the flesh. Rushing this leaves the fish tasting raw on the surface and underseasoned inside. The liquid must also be fully cooled before it is poured over the fish, so the delicate flesh is not partly cooked or broken up.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Turmericfits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, vinegar, ginger, 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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