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Salmon Au Gratin

A baked salmon dish topped with bread crumbs and butter, served with a creamy milk and onion sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper 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 Au Gratin

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, combine milk, onion, parsley, cornstarch, butter, pepper, and salt.

  2. Bring to a boil, stirring until thickened like drawn butter, then set aside to cool.

Layer and bake

  1. Butter a baking dish and layer half of the mixture, followed by a layer of salmon and a sprinkle of bread crumbs.

  2. Repeat the layers, finishing with bread crumbs and small bits of butter on top.

  3. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 30 minutes and garnish with parsley 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. Parsley + peppertop 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  4. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Milk + breadtop 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

Salmon
Forms the main body of the dish and provides its savory, flaky filling.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce that binds the layers together.
Cornstarch
Thickens the milk into a smooth sauce as it heats and boils.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the sauce and gives the top a golden finish.
Fine bread crumbs
Form a crisp, browned topping over the layers when baked.

The step that matters

Bringing the sauce to a boil. Cornstarch only thickens fully when it reaches a boil while being stirred. Stopping early leaves the sauce thin, and stirring prevents it from scorching or forming lumps on the bottom of the pan.

Swap the onion

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

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

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