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To Pickle Cold Salmon

A method of pickling salmon by boiling it in a vinegar and peppercorn solution.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Vinegar and salmon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 27% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,675 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

To Pickle Cold Salmon

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pickle

  1. Boil the water in which the fish was previously cooked.

  2. Add an equal amount of vinegar and a few whole peppercorns.

  3. Once the mixture begins to bubble, remove it from the heat.

Pickle the salmon

  1. Place the cold salmon in the mixture to preserve it.

  2. If the salmon is not fully cooked, boil it in the pickle until thoroughly done.

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 + salmontop 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

Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the fish and gives the pickle its sharp flavour.
Whole peppercorns
Add aromatic, spicy flavour to the pickling liquid.
Salmon
The main protein, which firms and takes on flavour as it sits in the acidic pickle.

The step that matters

Removing the pickle from the heat once it bubbles. Letting the mixture boil hard for long evaporates liquid and concentrates the vinegar, changing the balance of the pickle. Stopping at the first bubbles keeps the brine's strength and flavour steady before the fish goes in.

“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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