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Collared Salmon or Mackerel

A fish rolled in cloth, boiled with salt, vinegar, bay leaves, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Mace and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Collared Salmon or Mackerel

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut off the head and tail of the fish, bone it, and wash it well.

  2. Dry the fish and season both sides with salt, pepper, mace, and nutmeg.

  3. Roll the fish tightly and place it in a cloth, securing it well.

Poach

  1. Boil the fish in salted water with vinegar, bay leaves, peppercorns, and mace.

  2. Cook salmon for about 1 hour and mackerel for about 20 minutes, gently simmering.

  3. Once cooked, remove the fish and boil the cooking liquid until reduced.

Finish and serve

  1. Let the liquid cool, then pour it over the fish after removing it from the cloth.

  2. Serve cold, garnished with parsley or fennel.

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. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Mace + vinegartop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,415 recipes

Pepper and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Salmon or mackerel
Forms the main body of the dish, cooked gently until firm and flaky.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the poaching liquid and the finished fish.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the fish and helps draw out moisture and firm its flesh.
Powdered mace
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavour to the fish and the poaching liquid.
Grated nutmeg
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavour that complements the mace.

The step that matters

Gently simmering the fish. Rolled fish poached at a hard boil can break apart and turn tough, as the proteins contract too quickly. A slow simmer keeps the flesh tender and intact while it cooks through.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Dillfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, pepper, nutmeg, 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.

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