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Escalloped Salmon

A baked salmon mixture of canned salmon, eggs, butter, cracker crumbs, and milk, served with a milk‑based sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Escalloped Salmon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the salmon mixture

  1. Mince the salmon finely with a fork.

  2. Stir in the melted butter.

  3. Season with salt and pepper.

  4. Add the eggs and cracker crumbs.

  5. Add milk until the mixture reaches a mush-like consistency.

Bake

  1. Bake in a buttered dish for 30 minutes.

Make the sauce

  1. For the sauce, bring 1 cup of milk to a boil.

  2. Thicken with 1 teaspoon of cornstarch.

  3. Add the liquid from the salmon and 1 beaten egg.

  4. Stir carefully and bring to a gentle boil.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Salmon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Salmon + milktop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,577 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 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

Canned salmon
Forms the main body and flavour of the dish.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and set it firm when baked.
Cracker crumbs
Absorb liquid and give the mixture a soft, bread-like body.
Melted butter
Adds fat and richness, keeping the mixture moist.
Milk
Adds moisture to the mixture and forms the base of the sauce.
Cornstarch (in the method)
Thickens the sauce as its starch swells when heated and boiled.

The step that matters

Stir carefully and bring the sauce to a gentle boil. Egg proteins can curdle and cornstarch can lump if the sauce is heated too hard or left unstirred. Gentle heat with constant stirring keeps the sauce smooth while the starch thickens fully.

“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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