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Preserve

Potted Salmon

A preserved salmon made by cooking fish with butter, anchovy essence, salt, and cayenne pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and shrimp are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,931 recipes. Both carry 2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, green. The science ↓

Potted Salmon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Pick the fish carefully from the bones and pound it to a paste.

Make the potted salmon

  1. Place the fish in an earthenware jar and put it in a saucepan of boiling water.

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

  3. Add salt and Cayenne pepper to taste if necessary.

  4. Stir occasionally until nearly cold, then press into small pots.

Seal and store

  1. Cover the pots with clarified butter or other good 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. Butter + shrimptop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,931 recipes

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

  2. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Fish + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,948 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Fish
Forms the bulk of the paste and gives the dish its main flavour and texture.
Fresh butter
Adds richness and a smooth, spreadable texture as it melts into the paste.
Essence of shrimps or anchovies
Adds a savoury, seafood aroma that deepens the flavour of the fish.

The step that matters

Warming the fish in the water bath. Heating the fish gently, rather than over direct heat, lets the butter melt into the paste without scorching or separating. Stirring as it cools keeps the texture smooth and even.

“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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