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Salmon in Jelly

A chilled aspic of flaked salmon, eggs, cress, tarragon, chervil, and shrimp.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Tarragon and chervil match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 824 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Salmon in Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the salmon, skin it, and flake the fish.

  2. Hard-boil the eggs; cut the white of one into long strips and sieve the yolk.

  3. Slice the remaining eggs and wash the cress, tarragon, and chervil; shred the tarragon.

Assemble the mold

  1. Line a plain mold with a thin layer of aspic.

  2. Arrange some egg slices, shrimp, and salad in a pattern at the bottom of the mold.

  3. Place the strips of egg around the sides of the mold, curling them with a shrimp or green garnish in the center.

  4. Pour in enough aspic to cover the bottom garnish and add pieces of fish an inch deep.

  5. Add more aspic and let it set.

  6. Loosely fill the mold with the remaining fish, eggs, and salad, then add the rest of the jelly.

  7. Sprinkle the sieved yolk among the garnish.

Set and serve

  1. Leave until firm, then turn out and serve with a dressed salad around the base.

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. Tarragon + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together824 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Salmon + shrimptop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together819 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  3. Salmon + eggtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,485 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Salmon + cherviltop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together104 recipes

    Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).

  5. Chervil + shrimptop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together80 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

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 set mold, giving the dish its substance and flavor.
Liquid aspic
Sets into a clear gel that holds the fish and garnish together when turned out.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add firm texture and contrast to the soft fish, and their sieved yolk adds color.

The step that matters

Let each aspic layer set before adding the next. Aspic is a gelatin-based liquid that firms only as it cools. Pouring new layers onto unset aspic can float or shift the garnish, and turning out an unfirm mold can cause it to collapse.

Swap the tarragon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, egg, chervil, shrimp):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonthe original
  3. Dillfits about as well
  4. Parsleyfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, egg, chervil, shrimp. 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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