Skip to main content
Main

To Pickle Salmon

A method of preserving salmon by boiling it in salted water, then adding vinegar and fennel, and finishing with salad oil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Salmon and fennel work together. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 253 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

To Pickle Salmon

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the fish

  1. Split the salmon down the back and cut it into pieces.

  2. Place the pieces on a fish strainer and boil in salted water until tender.

  3. Pack the pieces tightly in a pan and boil the remaining fish in the same water.

Pickle and preserve

  1. Add 2 ¼ cups of vinegar and a handful of fennel to the water, then boil for 5 minutes.

  2. Strain the liquid over the fish and let it cool completely.

  3. Once cold, add 1 tablespoon of salad oil and keep the fish covered to preserve.

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 + fenneltop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together253 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  2. Vinegar + fenneltop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together505 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. 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
Provides the main flesh, which firms and flakes as it cooks in the poaching water.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and helps preserve the fish.
Fennel
Adds a light anise-like aroma to the pickling liquid.
Salad oil
Adds fat that coats the fish and softens its texture.

The step that matters

Let the fish cool completely before adding the oil. Adding oil to warm fish can make it greasy and uneven, and the fish needs to be fully cold before it is covered so that moisture does not collect and soften it.

Swap the fennel

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Fennelthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, vinegar. 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.

You might also like

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