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Pickled Salmon

Pickled salmon is cured in a vinegar and salt brine with bay leaves, mace, and white pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Mace and white pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,695 recipes. Both carry myrcene, which smells balsamic, herbaceous. The science ↓

Pickled Salmon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the salmon

  1. Split the salmon down the middle and cut it into proper-sized pieces.

  2. Place the salmon in a pot and cover it with cold water.

Make the pickle

  1. Add vinegar, salt, bay leaves, mace, and whole white pepper.

  2. Boil the mixture until it reduces by three-quarters.

  3. Cool the reduced liquid.

Pickle and serve

  1. Remove the salmon from the pot.

  2. Lay the salmon on a clean cloth.

  3. Pour the cooled liquid over the salmon.

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. Mace + white peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  2. Vinegar + white peppertop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,154 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Vinegar + macetop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,415 recipes
  4. Salmon + macetop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together550 recipes
  5. Salmon + vinegartop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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, becoming firm and flaky as it is cured in the liquid.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves and sharpens the flavour of the fish.
Bay leaves
Add a herbal, aromatic note to the pickling liquid.
Mace
Adds warm, aromatic spice to the reduced pickling liquid.
Whole white pepper
Adds gentle, aromatic heat to the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture until it reduces by three-quarters. Reducing concentrates the vinegar, salt and spices, so the liquid carries more flavour and acidity. Stopping early leaves it weak, while over-reducing can make it overly salty and sharp.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, vinegar, mace. 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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