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Escalloped Salmon

A baked salmon dish with butter, milk, eggs, flour, cracker crumbs, and seasoning.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Escalloped Salmon

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dressing

  1. Melt the butter in the milk over medium heat.

  2. Once boiling, thicken with the flour mixed to a paste with a little milk.

  3. Add the well-beaten eggs to the mixture.

Assemble and bake

  1. Butter a baking dish and layer with salmon, cracker crumbs, and the dressing, seasoning each layer to taste.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes.

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. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + flourtop 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

Salmon
Forms the main body of the dish and provides its flavor and flaked texture.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavor and keeps the dressing smooth.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the dressing, which thickens and turns creamy when heated.
Eggs
Set during baking to bind the dressing into a custard-like, sliceable mass.
Flour
Thickens the boiling milk so the dressing becomes smooth and coats the salmon.
Cracker crumbs
Absorb liquid and add structure and a light, toasted texture between the layers.

The step that matters

Add the eggs to the hot mixture gradually. Eggs curdle if they meet very hot liquid too quickly. Stirring the hot mixture as the beaten eggs go in, and keeping it from boiling hard afterward, keeps the dressing smooth and lets the egg proteins set gently during baking.

“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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