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Soused Salmon

A boiled salmon served cold with a vinegar-based sauce of bay leaves, cloves, peppercorns, juniper berries, sugar, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Soused Salmon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pickle

  1. Place the boiled salmon in a deep dish.

  2. Boil enough vinegar to cover the fish.

  3. Add bay leaves, cloves, peppercorns, juniper berries, sugar, and salt to the vinegar.

  4. Pour the boiling vinegar over the fish.

Serve

  1. Serve when cold, whole or shredded, with mayonnaise or vinaigrette.

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. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Fish + clovetop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together615 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. Vinegar + fishtop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,036 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).

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 dish, flaking into pieces when cold and shredded.
Vinegar
Acidity that sharpens the flavour and helps firm and preserve the fish.
Juniper berries
Adds a resinous, aromatic flavour to the vinegar brine.
Sugar
Softens the sharpness of the vinegar, balancing the acidity.

Swap the clove

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

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

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