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Salad

To Pickle Salmon

A method for pickling a whole salmon using water, bay leaves, peppercorns, salt, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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

Cook the salmon

  1. Boil the cleaned salmon gently until cooked through.

  2. Remove the salmon and strain the cooking liquid.

Make the pickling liquid

  1. Add bay leaves, peppercorns, and coarse sea salt to the strained liquid and bring to a boil.

  2. Allow the mixture to cool, then add vinegar to taste.

  3. Pour the cooled mixture over the salmon.

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
Is the main protein that cooks through and absorbs the pickling flavours.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the pickled salmon its sharp, tangy flavour.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the cooking liquid and helps firm the fish's texture.

The step that matters

Cool the mixture before adding vinegar. Vinegar added to a hot liquid can evaporate off some of its sharp aroma and the heat can start to cook the fish further. Cooling first keeps the acidity fresh and lets the pickling liquid settle around the salmon gently.

“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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