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Caxxed Salmon with Cream Sauce

Canned salmon served on buttered toast with a homemade cream sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Caxxed Salmon with Cream Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the salmon

  1. Heat the canned salmon in a pan.

  2. Season the salmon with salt and pepper.

  3. Place the heated salmon on buttered toast.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. In a separate pan, melt 2 tablespoons of butter.

  2. Whisk in ½ teaspoon of flour and cook for 1 minute.

  3. Slowly add 1 cup of boiling water, stirring continuously.

  4. Cook the sauce for 2 minutes until thickened.

  5. Pour the cream sauce over the salmon on toast.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Salmon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  3. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

  5. Salmon + peppertop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,446 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Canned salmon
Provides the main protein and flavour, heated through before serving.
Butter
Adds richness and a rounded flavour, and forms the base of the sauce.
All-purpose flour
Thickens the sauce as its starch swells in the hot butter and liquid.

The step that matters

Slowly add the boiling water while stirring. Flour must be evenly dispersed in the melted butter before liquid is added, or lumps will form. Adding the water gradually and stirring constantly lets the starch hydrate smoothly, so it thickens evenly as the sauce heats.

“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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