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Salmon Loaf

A baked loaf of flaked salmon mixed with crackers, onion, eggs, and butter, topped with a butter‑flour‑milk sauce.

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 ↓

Salmon Loaf

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the loaf

  1. Drain and flake the salmon into pieces.

  2. Crush the crackers and grind the onion.

  3. In a bowl, combine the salmon, crushed crackers, ground onion, and unbeaten eggs.

  4. Pack the mixture into a buttered mold.

Cook and make the sauce

  1. Boil for 1 hour.

  2. For the sauce, melt the butter in a saucepan, then whisk in the flour until smooth.

  3. Gradually add the milk, stirring constantly until thickened.

Serve

  1. Turn the salmon loaf onto a plate, garnish with parsley and hard-boiled eggs.

  2. Serve each slice with a spoonful of sauce.

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. Coffee + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,202 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, 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

Eggs
Bind the mixture and help the loaf set firm when cooked.
Salmon
Provides the main body and flavor of the loaf.
Crackers
Absorb moisture and add bulk so the loaf holds together.
Butter
Fat that combines with flour to form the base of the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk into a smooth white sauce.
Milk
Liquid that swells the flour and turns the sauce creamy as it thickens.

The step that matters

Gradually add the milk, stirring constantly until thickened. Adding milk slowly while stirring keeps the flour mixture smooth; dumping it in at once can leave lumps that are hard to remove. Flour thickens as its starch swells in hot liquid.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, egg, pepper, butter, flour, coffee, milk):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, egg, pepper, butter, flour, coffee, milk. 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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