Skip to main content
Main

Salmon Mousse

A chilled salmon mousse made with custard, gelatin, and shredded salmon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Lemon and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,053 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Salmon Mousse

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. In a saucepan, make a custard by heating the milk and whisking in the eggs until thickened.

  2. Dissolve the gelatin in a small amount of warm water and add it to the custard.

Assemble and set

  1. Shred the salmon and mix it with lemon juice, salt, and paprika.

  2. Combine the salmon mixture with the custard and fold in the beaten egg whites.

  3. Pour the mixture into a mold and refrigerate until set.

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. Lemon + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Egg + salmontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,485 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Milk + salmontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,577 recipes

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

  4. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Lemon + salmontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,918 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Thicken the custard and add structure as the mousse sets.
Gelatin
Sets the mousse so it holds its shape when chilled.
Salmon
Provides the main flavour and body of the mousse.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, giving it richness and smoothness.

The step that matters

Fold in the beaten egg whites. Folding gently keeps the air in the whipped whites, which lightens the mousse. Stirring or deflating them makes the set mousse dense and heavy.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, milk, gelatin, salmon):

  1. Vanillafits about as well
  2. Coconutfits about as well
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Pumpkinfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk, gelatin, salmon. 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.

You might also like

Lemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesSalmon SaladSalmon Salad155 recipesSalmon CroquettesSalmon Croquettes129 recipesCanned SalmonCanned Salmon14 recipes