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Steamed Salmon

Steamed salmon with butter, eggs, breadcrumbs, and seasonings, served with a mustard‑cayenne dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Steamed Salmon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and steam

  1. Preheat the steamer.

  2. In a bowl, mix the salmon, melted butter, eggs (whites only), bread crumbs, salt, pepper, mustard, cayenne, and parsley until well combined.

  3. Transfer the mixture to a steaming dish and steam for 1 hour.

Make the dressing

  1. For the dressing, melt 1 tablespoon of butter in a saucepan.

  2. Stir in 1 teaspoon of corn starch and ½ cup of milk; cook until the mixture is clear.

  3. Add the liquid from the salmon and the beaten egg yolks to the saucepan, stirring well.

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. Mustard + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,588 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  4. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

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

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

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 loaf and supplies the flaked protein structure.
Eggs
Egg whites bind the mixture and set as it steams, holding the loaf together.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture from the salmon and give the mixture a softer, tender texture.
Melted butter
Adds fat for richness and moisture, keeping the steamed salmon from drying out.

The step that matters

Stirring the egg yolks into the hot dressing. Egg yolks can scramble when they meet hot liquid. Stirring constantly while adding them keeps the yolks evenly dispersed so the dressing stays smooth and thickened.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Mustardthe original

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