Skip to main content
Main

To Kiffer Salmon

A cured salmon prepared by salting and sugaring, then drying and optionally sun‑drying, before slicing and frying.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 Kiffer Salmon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Lay the fish on its side and cut it from tail to head, being careful not to injure the belly.

  2. Wash the fish well and remove the eyes, replacing them with a pinch of salt.

  3. Sprinkle a handful or two of brown sugar inside the fish, followed by the same quantity or slightly more of coarse sea salt.

  4. Lay the salmon on a flat board, inside up, and cover with a cloth.

Cure

  1. Let it cure for 24 hours in a dry place, or 36 hours for a saltier flavor.

  2. If the weather is nice, expose it to the sun and air for an hour or two to speed up the curing process.

  3. After 24 hours, the kipper is ready; it can be kept for a considerable time.

Cook and serve

  1. To cook, cut the salmon into slices, wrap each slice in paper, and fry them.

  2. Serve the fried salmon in the paper.

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

Salmon
Forms the flesh that is cured and then fried, giving the kipper its texture and body.
Coarse sea salt
Draws out moisture and firms the flesh, preserving the fish during curing.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the salt, softening the harshness of the cure.

The step that matters

Covering the fish with salt and sugar inside. Salt must reach the thick flesh evenly; uneven coverage lets some parts stay wet and spoil or cure unevenly, while too little salt leaves the kipper unpreserved.

“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.

You might also like

Salmon SaladSalmon Salad155 recipesSalmon CroquettesSalmon Croquettes129 recipesCanned SalmonCanned Salmon14 recipesSmoked SalmonSmoked Salmon14 recipes