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Potted Salmon

A preserved salmon mixture cooked in butter and spices, then set in pots and covered with clarified butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Salmon and fish are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,078 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Potted Salmon

Oven, in the book's wordsA cool oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the salmon

  1. Carefully remove the fish from the bones and pound it into a paste in a mortar.

  2. Place the paste in an earthenware jar and set it in a saucepan of boiling water.

Season and set

  1. Once the fish is hot, stir in ¼ of its weight in fresh butter and a little essence of shrimps or anchovies.

  2. Add salt and cayenne pepper to taste if necessary, stirring occasionally until nearly cold.

  3. Press the mixture into small pots and cover with clarified butter or other fat the next day.

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 + fishtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,078 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + shrimptop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,931 recipes

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

  3. Butter + fishtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Fish + shrimptop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together252 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

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 paste, providing protein structure and rich flavour.
Fresh butter
Adds richness and a smooth, spreadable texture as it melts into the warm fish.
Essence of shrimps or anchovies
Adds a savoury, briny aroma that deepens the flavour of the fish.

The step that matters

Stirring in the butter while the fish is hot. Butter must melt evenly into the warm paste so it emulsifies smoothly; if the fish is not hot enough, the butter can stay separate and leave the texture greasy and grainy.

“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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