Skip to main content
Main

Salmon Loaf

A baked loaf of flaked salmon mixed with eggs, milk, and seasonings, topped with a creamy sauce and served over mashed potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Salmon Loaf

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Bake the loaf

  1. Drain and flake the salmon, then season with pepper.

  2. Beat the eggs lightly and stir them into the salmon.

  3. Transfer the mixture to a buttered dish and bake in a pan of boiling water for 30 minutes at 350°F (175°C).

Make the sauce

  1. For the sauce, heat the milk and mix in the cornstarch dissolved in the salmon liquor.

  2. Add the butter, tomato ketchup, beaten egg, red pepper, and salt to the milk mixture and cook until thickened like cream.

  3. In a separate pan, melt the butter, stir in the flour, and gradually add the milk mixture.

  4. Add the flaked salmon and cook for about 10 minutes.

Serve

  1. Arrange the mashed potatoes in a circle on a hot dish and pour the salmon mixture into the center.

  2. Garnish with parsley and serve hot.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Ketchup + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,435 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Eggs
Set when heated, binding the salmon into a sliceable loaf.
Salmon
Forms the main body and flavor of the loaf and sauce.
Milk
Provides the liquid base of the sauce and adds moisture and richness.
Cornstarch
Thickens the sauce as it heats, giving it a smooth, creamy body.
Flour
Cooked with butter to form a roux that helps thicken the sauce.
Butter
Adds fat and rich flavor to both the loaf dish and the sauce.

The step that matters

Baking the loaf in a pan of boiling water. The water bath moderates the heat around the dish, so the egg-bound salmon sets gently. Direct high heat would make the eggs tough, dry, or cracked.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, egg, pepper, milk, butter, ketchup, flour):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, egg, pepper, milk, butter, ketchup, flour. 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.

More salmon loaf recipes

Sauce 5Steamed 4 See all 140 →

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesPotato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesSalmon SaladSalmon Salad155 recipesSalmon CroquettesSalmon Croquettes129 recipes