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Salad

To Pickle Salmon

A method for pickling salmon using bay leaves, peppercorns, sea salt, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Salmon and vinegar 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 Salmon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Clean the salmon carefully.

  2. Boil the fish gently until done.

  3. Remove the fish from the pot.

Make the pickling liquid

  1. Strain the cooking liquid.

  2. Add bay leaves, peppercorns, and coarse sea salt to the liquid.

  3. Bring the liquid to a boil.

  4. Let the liquid cool.

  5. Add vinegar to taste.

Pickle

  1. Pour the liquid over the fish.

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. 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 when cooked gently in liquid.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the pickled flavour and sharpness to the fish.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the liquid and helps draw flavour into the fish.

The step that matters

Boil the fish gently until done. A rolling boil breaks the delicate flesh apart and toughens it, while gentle simmering cooks the salmon evenly and keeps it moist and intact.

“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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