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Cold Salmon

Cold salmon served with mousse, mayonnaise sauce, fish jelly, and decorative garnishes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Capers and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,550 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Cold Salmon

Ingredients

Directions

Poach and cool

  1. Cook the salmon whole or in large pieces in salted water.

  2. Cool the salmon in the same salted water.

Coat the salmon

  1. Remove the skin from one side of the salmon.

  2. Coat the fillets with salmon mousse, adding more in the middle.

  3. Cover the mousse with mayonnaise sauce thickened with fish jelly.

  4. Let the sauce set.

Set and decorate

  1. Place some clear fish jelly on a serving dish and let it set.

  2. Place the salmon on top of the set jelly.

  3. Surround the salmon with a border of Montpellier butter using a piping bag.

  4. Decorate the center with truffles.

  5. Encircle the salmon with royale crowns made from anchovy fillets.

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. Capers + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,550 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Anchovy + saucetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Cucumber + caperstop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together303 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Cucumber + tomatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,405 recipes

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

  5. Cucumber + parsleytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,564 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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, providing the flesh that the mousse and coating surround.
Salmon mousse
Gives a soft, smooth, airy filling that carries the coating and adds richness.
Mayonnaise sauce thickened with fish jelly
Forms a glossy, lightly set layer that holds its shape and seals the mousse.
Clear fish jelly
Sets into a firm, clear base that supports the salmon and gives a cool, glossy finish.
Montpellier butter
Adds fat and a herbal flavour, and holds its shape when piped as a border.

The step that matters

Let the sauce set. The mayonnaise must be fully set before the salmon is placed on the jelly. Gelatine from the fish jelly firms as it cools, so moving the dish too early can smear the coating and spoil the finish.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, cucumber, anchovy, capers, tomato, sauce, fish):

  1. Tarragonfits about as well
  2. Garlicfits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Dillfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, cucumber, anchovy, capers, tomato, sauce, fish. 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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