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Salmon, Potted

Potted salmon is a dish of salmon mixed with clarified butter, anchovy essence, mace, salt, pepper, and cayenne, then pressed into small pots.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Salmon and anchovy work together. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 535 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Salmon, Potted

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the salmon

  1. Remove skin and bones from the salmon.

  2. Pound the salmon thoroughly in a mortar.

Season and mix

  1. Gradually add the seasoning, anchovy essence, and clarified butter until the desired consistency and flavor are achieved.

  2. Rub the mixture through a fine sieve.

Pot and seal

  1. Press into small pots and cover with a layer of clarified butter.

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 + anchovytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together535 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Butter + anchovytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,697 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Salmon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,481 recipes

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

  5. Anchovy + peppertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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 body of the paste, providing the main flavor and texture.
Clarified butter
Adds richness and moisture, and seals the surface of the potted salmon.
Anchovy essence
Adds a savory, salty depth to the flavor.

The step that matters

Rub the mixture through a fine sieve. Pushing the pounded salmon through a fine sieve breaks down remaining fibers and lumps, giving a smooth, even texture. Skipping or rushing this leaves the paste grainy.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, butter, anchovy, pepper):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, butter, anchovy, pepper. 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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