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To Dry Salmon

A method for drying a whole salmon using salt, saltpetre, sea salt, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Salmon and sugar work together. They rank in the top 35% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 931 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

To Dry Salmon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the salmon

  1. Scale the salmon.

  2. Remove the insides and roe.

  3. Rub the entire fish with common salt.

  4. Let it hang for 24 hours to drain.

Cure

  1. Mix saltpetre, coarse sea salt, and coarse sugar.

  2. Rub this mixture into the salmon.

  3. Place the salmon on a large dish for 2 days.

  4. Rub it again with common salt.

  5. After 24 hours, wipe the salmon well.

Dry

  1. Hang it in a dry place.

  2. Keep it open with two small sticks.

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 + sugartop 35% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together931 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Saltpetre
Preserves the fish and helps keep its pink color during curing.
Coarse sea salt
Draws moisture out of the fish and seasons it through the cure.
Coarse sugar
Balances the saltiness and adds mild sweetness to the cured flesh.
Common salt
Draws out moisture and firms the flesh as it cures.

The step that matters

Wiping the salmon after 24 hours. Salt and sugar draw moisture out of the fish, leaving a sticky surface of brine and cure. Wiping it well removes this excess, which helps the surface dry evenly instead of staying wet or over-salted.

“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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