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Salmon Pudding

A steamed salmon pudding made with bread crumbs, gherkin, eggs, butter, lemon juice, and Worcestershire sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Salmon Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Drain the oil from the salmon and remove bones and skin.

  2. In a bowl, combine the salmon, grated bread, chopped gherkin, melted butter, lemon juice, and Worcestershire sauce.

  3. Add the beaten egg yolks and egg whites, then season with pepper and salt as needed.

  4. Butter an oblong baking dish and pack the mixture into it.

Steam and serve

  1. Steam the pudding for 1 hour.

  2. Carefully transfer to a platter and pour sauce around it.

  3. Garnish with parsley.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  4. Butter + saucetop 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).

Butter and sauce 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

Salmon
Provides the main body and flavor of the pudding.
Egg yolks
Bind the mixture and add richness to the set custard-like texture.
Egg whites
Add lightness and help the pudding set when steamed.
Grated bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the pudding structure and body.
Melted butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender texture.

The step that matters

Steam the pudding for 1 hour. Steaming heats the egg-bound mixture gently; too much heat or too fast cooking can make the eggs curdle or the pudding turn tough and watery, so keep the steam steady and the pudding covered.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Avocadofits about as well
  3. Plumfits less well
  4. Coconutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, bread, egg, butter, sauce, pepper. 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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