Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Creamed Salmon on Toast
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the salmon
Remove bones from the salmon and cut it into small pieces.
Cover the salmon with grated cheese.
Make the sauce
In a saucepan, melt the butter.
Add the flour to the melted butter and stir to form a paste.
Gradually add the milk, seasoning with salt to taste, and bring to a boil while stirring until smooth.
Add the salmon to the sauce and boil for 1 minute longer.
Serve
Serve hot over toast.
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,962 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,426 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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
- Salmon
- Provides the main protein and flavor of the dish.
- Butter
- Adds fat and richness to the sauce base.
- Flour
- Thickens the milk into a smooth, creamy sauce when cooked.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base that becomes the creamy sauce.
- Grated cheese
- Adds savory flavor and richness to the dish.
The step that matters
Stirring the milk into the flour paste. Adding the milk gradually while stirring keeps lumps from forming. Bringing the sauce to a boil cooks the flour so it thickens fully and tastes less raw.
“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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