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Salmon Loaf

A steamed loaf of salmon mixed with eggs, butter, and crumbs, topped with a lemon‑egg sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon 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 Loaf

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the loaf

  1. Preheat your steamer.

  2. In a bowl, mix the salmon, beaten eggs, melted butter, bread or cracker crumbs, salt, and pepper until well combined.

  3. Form the mixture into a loaf shape.

  4. Place the loaf in the steamer and steam for 1 hour.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. For the sauce, melt ½ cup butter in a saucepan.

  2. Whisk in the egg yolks, lemon juice, and flour until smooth.

  3. Gradually add the boiling water, stirring constantly until thickened.

  4. Pour the sauce over the salmon loaf before serving.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

  5. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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 set into a firm, sliceable loaf when cooked.
Salmon
Provides the main body and flavor of the loaf.
Bread or cracker crumbs
Absorb moisture and help the loaf hold its shape.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the loaf and enriches the sauce.
Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce and give it a smooth, rich texture.
Flour
Thickens the sauce along with the egg yolks and boiling water.

The step that matters

Gradually add the boiling water while stirring constantly. Adding hot liquid slowly and stirring keeps the egg yolks from scrambling and lets the flour thicken the sauce evenly without lumps.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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