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Scalloped Salmon

A baked dish of shredded salmon layered with cracker crumbs and topped with a creamy sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Scalloped Salmon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the layers

  1. In a shallow dish, layer shredded salmon and cracker crumbs alternately.

  2. Season each layer with butter, coarse sea salt, and black pepper.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, cream together 1 tablespoon of butter and 1 tablespoon of flour.

  2. Stir in 1 cup of boiling milk and cook until thickened.

  3. Remove from heat and stir in 1 beaten egg.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture over the layered salmon and crumbs, then brown in the oven.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Salmon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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

Shredded salmon
Forms the main body of the dish and provides its protein and flavour.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce that moistens the layers.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth sauce as it cooks.
Egg
Sets when heated, helping bind the sauce and give it body.
Cracker crumbs
Add bulk and absorb moisture between the salmon layers.

The step that matters

Stir the egg in off the heat. Egg proteins set at around 160°F and scramble if added to a boiling sauce. Removing the pan from heat first lets the egg thicken the sauce gently and evenly.

“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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