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Canned Salmon, Deviled

A baked salmon dish topped with a mustard‑flour sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,259 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Canned Salmon, Deviled

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.

Make the sauce

  1. Fry the onion until brown.

  2. Add water, flour, mustard, salt, and pepper; simmer.

  3. Stir in the liquid from the canned salmon, being careful not to let it burn.

Assemble and singe

  1. Place the hot salmon on a dish and spread the thick sauce over it.

  2. Put it in a 400°F (200°C) oven for a moment to singe the surface.

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. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  2. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Flour + mustardtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,066 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Onion + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 of the dish and supplies the fish and its liquid for the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the sauce so it can coat the salmon rather than run off.
Onion
Browning in the pan builds savory, sweet flavor into the sauce.
English mustard
Adds sharp, pungent heat that cuts through the richness of the fish and sauce.

The step that matters

Stir in the salmon liquid without letting it burn. Flour and browned onion can scorch on direct heat, producing bitter, burnt flavors. Keeping the heat moderate and stirring constantly keeps the sauce smooth and tasting clean.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, mustard, pepper, salmon):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, mustard, pepper, salmon. 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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