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Pickled Fisii

A dish of salmon slices seasoned, fried, and layered with fennel, tarragon, and bay leaf in a stone jar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Pickled Fisii

Ingredients

Directions

Season and fry

  1. Rub each salmon slice with the seasoning mixture of mace, Jamaica pepper, cardamom seeds, allspice, cloves, coarse sea salt, nutmeg, powdered bay leaf, and dried mint.

  2. Coat each piece with beaten egg yolk and sprinkle more seasoning on top.

  3. Heat olive oil in a frying pan and fry each piece of salmon until golden brown.

  4. Drain the fried salmon on a wire rack until completely cool.

Layer and pickle

  1. In a stone jar, layer fennel and tarragon, then add a layer of salmon, followed by a bay leaf, fennel, and tarragon. Repeat until all salmon is layered.

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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Allspice + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Cardamom + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,114 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Cardamom + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together249 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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, carrying the seasoning and holding its texture through frying and pickling.
Beaten egg yolk
Acts as a binder so the seasoning clings to each slice and helps the surface brown.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the fish and draws out moisture, helping the flesh firm and preserve.
Olive oil
Conducts heat in the frying pan, browning the coated surface and adding richness.
Nutmeg
Adds warm, aromatic flavour that carries through the seasoned coating.

The step that matters

Draining the fried salmon until completely cool. Cooling fully before layering keeps residual heat and surface oil from softening the fish and making the jar wet, so the slices hold their texture and the pickle stays clean.

Swap the mint

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, mace, pepper, cardamom, allspice, clove, nutmeg):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Gingerfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Mintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, mace, pepper, cardamom, allspice, clove, nutmeg. 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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