Name: Pickled Salmon
Ingredients: salt salmon; boiling water; boiling vinegar; cloves; mace

Why it works: Clove and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,400 recipes. Both carry methyleugenol, which smells clove, spice. The science ↓

Pickled Salmon

Ingredients

Directions

Soak the salt salmon in water for 24 hours, changing the water frequently.
Pour boiling water around the salmon and let it stand for 15 minutes.
Drain the salmon and pour boiling vinegar over it, adding cloves and mace.

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.

Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together8,400 recipes

Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).
Vinegar + clovetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together10,386 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Vinegar + macetop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,415 recipes
Salmon + macetop 26% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together550 recipes
Salmon + vinegartop 27% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,675 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).