What spices go with salmon

The pairing that made the spice fashionable, and it holds up. Salmon is oily, pink and mildly sweet, and pink peppercorns give a resinous citric lift and a visible colour echo without adding heat that would fight the fish.

How: Crushed over seared or cured salmon; In a gravlax cure with dill and citrus

Add alongside: Dill, Lemon, Juniper

• Crush by hand and add at the end — cooked into a dish they contribute almost nothing.

Oily and smoked fish is the other half of the horseradish repertoire, and it works for the same reason as beef: fat needs sharpness, and horseradish gives it without the acidity that would firm the flesh. Central and Northern European cooking pairs it with smoked and cured fish as a matter of course, and chrain with gefilte fish is the same principle in a different tradition.

How: Creamed horseradish with hot-smoked salmon; Grated into soured cream as a dressing for cured fish; Chrain, white or beetroot-reddened, with gefilte fish

Add alongside: Dill, Lemon

• Creamed sauces are far milder than freshly grated root; season by tasting rather than by the recipe.

Scandinavian curing practice puts dill and salmon together and the seed does a different job from the herb: the herb is a fresh top note added at the end, while the seed goes into the cure or the poaching liquid, where carvone moves into the fish and gives a warmth that survives the salt. Oily fish needs something sharp against it and dill seed supplies that without acidity.

How: In a cure for gravadlax, alongside the herb rather than instead of it; In a court-bouillon for poached salmon

Add alongside: Dill, Mustard seed, Lemon

• Seed and herb are not alternatives here. A cure using only the seed tastes of rye bread and one using only the herb has no depth.

Gravlax is the argument: salmon buried in salt, sugar and a great deal of dill for two days. Oily fish carries fat-soluble aromatics well and needs something to cut its richness, and dill’s grassy coolness does that without the anise character fennel would bring.

How: Packed onto a side of salmon with salt and sugar for curing; Stirred through a cream or mustard sauce

Add alongside: Mustard seed, Lemon, Black pepper

• Fresh dill is destroyed by cooking. It goes on at the end or into the cure.

Smoked paprika and salmon is a natural fit: the smoke echoes the traditional smoking of the fish, and salmon's oil carries the fat-soluble colour and aroma well.

Add alongside: Garlic, Black pepper

Salmon is oily and distinctly flavoured, and fennel’s sweetness with its faint cooling quality cuts against that richness rather than sitting on top of it. The affinity extends to the fennel bulb and fronds, which are a standard accompaniment to the same fish.

How: Toasted and coarsely crushed into a rub before roasting or grilling; Whole seeds in a cure alongside dill and sugar

Add alongside: Dill, Black pepper, Lemon

• Ground fennel goes muddy against salmon; the coarse crush is doing textural work as well as aromatic work.

A standard of Chinese and Japanese fish cookery. Ginger is used specifically to counter the smell of fish — an explicit purpose in the culinary literature rather than an incidental effect — and its citric sharpness cuts the oiliness of salmon at the same time.

How: Julienned with spring onion over steamed fish; In a soy and rice wine marinade

Add alongside: Onion, White pepper, Fennel seed

• Fresh ginger only. Ground ginger against salmon tastes of baking spice and is a well-known way to spoil a good fillet.

Sansho over grilled eel is the canonical Japanese pairing and oily fish generally is what it suits: the citrus cuts fat, and the tingle arrives as a texture over a rich mouthful. Salmon is the closest oily fish most kitchens outside Japan can reach for, and the relationship transfers.

How: Shaken over grilled oily fish at the table; With soy and mirin on a rice bowl

Add alongside: Shiso, Sesame seed, Chilli flakes

• At the table, not in the pan. The sanshools that give the tingle do not survive cooking.

Smoked salmon with soured cream and chives is a fixed northern European combination, and the chive is doing precise work: oily smoked fish wants an allium sharpness and would be overwhelmed by a raw onion. The mildness is the qualification, not a limitation.

How: With smoked salmon and soured cream; Over a salmon fillet with butter

Add alongside: Dill

Green shiso with raw fish is the canonical Japanese use, and the leaf is doing two jobs: its perillaldehyde is antimicrobial enough that the pairing has a practical history, and the mint-cumin-citrus aroma cuts oily fish cleanly. Served as a whole leaf under or beside the fish rather than chopped.

How: Whole leaves with sashimi; Wrapped around fish for tempura