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Salmon Collared

A rolled salmon seasoned with spices, simmered in vinegar and water, served with fennel.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and fennel match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,216 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Salmon Collared

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Split the salmon to make a roll, wash and dry it.

  2. Mix salt, white pepper, pounded mace, and Jamaica pepper; rub this mixture inside and outside the fish.

  3. Roll the fish tightly and bandage it.

Poach

  1. Add enough water and vinegar to cover the fish, along with bay leaves and both types of pepper.

  2. Cover and simmer until cooked through.

Finish and serve

  1. Drain the liquid, boil it quickly, and pour it over the fish when cold.

  2. Serve with fennel.

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. Pepper + fenneltop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,216 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. White pepper + macetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  3. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Mace + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Salmon + fenneltop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together253 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

Mace and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 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

Salmon
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming firm and flaky when cooked through.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour of the poaching liquid and the finished fish.
Pounded mace
Contributes a warm, aromatic spice flavour to the fish's surface.

The step that matters

Simmer until cooked through. Simmering gently keeps the fish moist and tender; boiling hard can toughen the proteins and break the roll apart, while undercooking leaves it unsafe to eat.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Dillfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, mace, pepper, vinegar, fennel. 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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