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Sauce

Sauced Salmon

A dish of boiled salmon served with a vinegar-based sauce of bay leaves, cloves, peppercorns, juniper berries, sugar, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Vinegar and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 20,806 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Sauced Salmon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pickle

  1. Place the boiled salmon in a deep dish.

  2. Boil enough vinegar to cover the fish.

  3. Add bay leaves, cloves, peppercorns, juniper berries, sugar, and salt to the vinegar.

Pickle and serve

  1. Pour the boiling vinegar over the fish.

  2. Serve when cold.

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. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Vinegar + clovetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,386 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Clove + sugartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together17,182 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  4. Salmon + vinegartop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Salmon + clovetop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together724 recipes

    Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).

Clove and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 17,182 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

Boiled salmon
Forms the main body of the dish, carried by the flavoured vinegar.
Vinegar
Acidity that sharpens the fish and helps preserve it as it sits.
Juniper berries
Adds a resinous, aromatic flavour to the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Pouring the boiling vinegar over the fish. The vinegar must be at a full boil when poured so the spices release their aromas and the hot liquid begins to firm and season the fish. Pouring it too cool gives a weaker, less flavourful pickle.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Dillfits better
  2. Gingerfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Clovethe original

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