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Cold Salmon with Aspic-jelly

Cold salmon served in a clear aspic made from calf's feet stock, vinegar, vegetables, aromatics, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,768 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Cold Salmon with Aspic-jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

  1. Split the calf's feet lengthwise and remove the bones.

  2. Boil the feet in water on low heat, then strain the stock and skim off the fat.

  3. Cool the salmon slices in their cooking stock after boiling them in court-bouillon.

Make the aspic

  1. In a stewpan, mix half the salmon stock with an equal volume of calf's feet liquor.

  2. Add vinegar, minced vegetables, parsley, aromatics, peppercorns, and cloves.

  3. Beat the eggs with cold water and stir into the liquid.

  4. Heat the mixture until it simmers, then strain through a cloth until clear.

Set and serve

  1. Pour the jelly over the salmon slices arranged in a deep dish.

  2. Refrigerate for 24 hours before serving cold with the aspic-jelly.

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. Parsley + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Wine + vinegartop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,493 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Wine + clovetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,958 recipes

    Shared aroma: cis-isoeugenol (clove, spicy).

  4. Vinegar + clovetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,386 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Salmon + eggtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,485 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Calf's feet
Their collagen dissolves into the stock and gives the aspic its jelly-like set.
Eggs
Egg whites collect fine particles as they cook, clarifying the aspic so it turns out clear.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the jelly and balances the rich stock.
Salmon
The main fish, poached and set in the jelly, providing the flavour and texture of the dish.

The step that matters

Straining the clarified jelly. Simmering the egg-and-stock mixture lets the egg whites rise and trap cloudiness; straining it through a cloth without disturbing the layer leaves a clear aspic. Stirring or boiling hard would break up the clarifying raft and leave the jelly cloudy.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Dillfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, wine, vinegar, parsley, egg. 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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