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 ↓
Deviled Salmon
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Remove bones from the salmon.
Make the sauce
In a saucepan, make a white sauce by combining milk, butter, and flour over medium heat.
Add pepper, paprika, Worcestershire sauce, salt, and the salmon to the white sauce.
Serve
Serve hot in timbale cases or individual dishes.
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together15,338 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Salmon + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,481 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, 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
- Salmon
- Provides the main body and flavor of the dish.
- Flour
- Thickens the milk and butter into a smooth white sauce.
- Butter
- Adds richness and helps form the base of the white sauce.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base that thickens into the white sauce.
The step that matters
Making the white sauce. Flour must be cooked smoothly into the butter and milk over medium heat, stirred as it heats, so starch gelatinizes evenly and the sauce thickens without lumps.
“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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