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Salmon Loaf

Salmon loaf is a steamed fish cake made with salmon, eggs, butter, breadcrumbs, and parsley, topped with a tomato‑based sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Salmon Loaf

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the loaf

  1. Preheat your steamer.

  2. In a bowl, combine the salmon, eggs, melted butter, bread crumbs, salt, pepper, and minced parsley.

  3. Transfer the mixture into a buttered mold.

  4. Steam for 1 hour.

Make the sauce

  1. For the sauce, heat the milk and thicken it with corn starch.

  2. Add the heaping teaspoon of butter and the liquid from the salmon.

  3. Carefully stir in the beaten egg and cook until thick.

  4. Pour the sauce over the salmon loaf when ready to serve.

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 + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

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

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

  4. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  5. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the salmon mixture and set firm when steamed.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the loaf a tender, sliceable body.
Salmon
Provides the main body and flavor of the loaf.
Corn starch
Thickens the milk into a smooth, cohesive sauce.
Milk
Forms the base of the sauce, adding richness and body.

The step that matters

Stirring in the beaten egg. Adding egg to hot sauce can scramble it into lumps. Stir it in gently and keep the heat moderate so the sauce thickens smoothly instead of curdling.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Cinnamonfits about as well
  4. Dillfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, egg, butter, bread, pepper, milk, corn. 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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