Skip to main content
Main

Salmon to Souse, or Pickle

A whole salmon is boiled, then pickled in a vinegar brine with bay leaves, peppercorns, and coarse sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Salmon and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 27% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,675 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Salmon to Souse, or Pickle

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the salmon

  1. Boil the salmon until cooked.

  2. Remove the salmon from the pot.

Make the brine

  1. In the same pot, boil water with bay leaves, peppercorns, and coarse sea salt.

  2. Add vinegar to the cold liquid.

  3. Pour the liquid over the salmon.

Pickle and serve

  1. Let the salmon sit in the brine for 24 hours before serving.

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 + vinegartop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Salmon
Forms the flesh that the brine penetrates and seasons during pickling.
Vinegar
Acidity lowers the pH of the brine, giving the salmon its sharp, pickled flavour.
Coarse sea salt
Salt seasons the brine and draws moisture and flavour into the fish.
Peppercorns
Release aromatic compounds into the brine, adding a warm, spicy note.
Bay leaves
Infuse the brine with a subtle herbal aroma.

The step that matters

Let the salmon sit in the brine for 24 hours. The brine must be fully cooled before the salmon is added, or the fish will continue cooking and firm up. Acid and salt then need the full resting time to penetrate the flesh evenly and develop the pickled flavour.

“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.

You might also like

Salmon SaladSalmon Salad155 recipesSalmon CroquettesSalmon Croquettes129 recipesCanned SalmonCanned Salmon14 recipesSmoked SalmonSmoked Salmon14 recipes