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Salmon, Pickled.

Pickled salmon made by boiling, seasoning, and marinating in vinegar and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Anchovy and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,057 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Salmon, Pickled.

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the bone from the boiled salmon and place it in a deep dish.

Make the pickle

  1. Mix vinegar, liquor, pepper, and salt in a saucepan and boil for 10 minutes. Season the mixture well.

  2. Once cooled, pour the mixture over the fish.

Finish

  1. For added flavor, consider adding tarragon vinegar, melted butter, anchovy sauce, or onion.

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Pepper + tarragontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Vinegar + tarragontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,547 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Salmon + anchovytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together535 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Salmon
Forms the body of the dish, holding its texture while it soaks in the pickle.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that sharpens the flavor and helps preserve the fish.
Liquor the salmon was boiled in
Adds savory, fish-based flavor and moisture to the pickling mixture.

Swap the tarragon

The recipe marks tarragon as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, vinegar, pepper, butter, anchovy, sauce, onion):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Parsleyfits about as well
  4. Tarragonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, vinegar, pepper, butter, anchovy, sauce, onion. 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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