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Salmon Potted

A salmon fillet seasoned, baked, and covered with butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Salmon Potted

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the salmon

  1. Cut a handsome piece from the middle of the salmon.

  2. Remove the scales from the salmon.

  3. Wipe the salmon with a clean cloth.

  4. Rub coarse sea salt thoroughly onto the salmon.

  5. Beat together mace, cloves, and whole pepper.

  6. Season the salmon with the mace, cloves, and pepper mixture.

Bake

  1. Place the salmon in a pan with a few bay leaves.

  2. Cover the salmon with butter.

  3. Bake the salmon at 400°F (200°C) until thoroughly done.

Pot and seal

  1. Remove the salmon from the gravy.

  2. Let the salmon drain thoroughly.

  3. Place the salmon in pots.

  4. Clarify enough butter to cover all the pots after adding the salmon.

  5. Let the clarified butter cool.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Mace + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Salmon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  5. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

Mace and pepper 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, providing the flesh that is baked and potted.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and once clarified, seals the pots against air.
Mace
Adds a warm, aromatic spice flavour that complements the fish.
Cloves
Adds a strong, warm aromatic flavour to the salmon.

The step that matters

Baking until thoroughly done. Salmon baked too long dries out and turns crumbly, while underbaking leaves it unsafe. Cooking it fully but gently keeps the flesh moist enough to pot well.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, clove, pepper, 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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