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Crumbed Salmon

A baked salmon dish topped with breadcrumbs and cream, served in individual dishes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Crumbed Salmon

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Prepare 1 pint of thin white sauce and season it with lemon juice and Worcestershire sauce.

  2. Add the flaked salmon to the sauce and mix well.

Assemble and bake

  1. Grease individual dishes with butter and fill them with the salmon mixture.

  2. Top each dish with breadcrumbs and add 1 tablespoon of cream.

  3. Brown the dishes quickly in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C).

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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Sauce + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Salmon + creamtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,401 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

Sauce and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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

Thin white sauce
Forms a moist, creamy base that holds the salmon together.
Salmon
Provides the main protein and flavor of the dish.
Breadcrumbs
Form a crisp, golden topping when browned in the oven.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture to the top of each dish.

The step that matters

Brown the dishes quickly in a hot oven. A hot oven browns the breadcrumbs before the creamy sauce overheats or dries out. Because the salmon is already cooked, only a short bake is needed to set the topping and heat the filling through.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sauce, salmon, butter, cream):

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Strawberryfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sauce, salmon, butter, cream. 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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