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Dried Salmon and Other Fish

A savory dish of soaked dried salmon mixed with eggs, cream, butter, and flour, served with a wall of mashed potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Dried Salmon and Other Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the dried salmon overnight.

  2. Flake the salmon and season it with pepper.

Make and serve

  1. In a bowl, combine the flaked salmon, chopped eggs, cream, butter, and flour.

  2. Stir the mixture until it is scalding hot.

  3. Form a wall of mashed potatoes around the inner rim of a serving dish.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + potatotop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

  5. Salmon + creamtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,401 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

Dried salmon
Forms the main body of the dish and provides its savory, salty flavor.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add body and a firm, creamy texture to the mixture.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, giving the mixture a smooth, saucy texture.
Fresh butter
Contributes fat for richness and a silky mouthfeel.
Flour
Thickens the cream mixture so it holds together rather than running thin.

The step that matters

Stir the mixture until it is scalding hot. Heating the cream and flour mixture while stirring keeps it smooth and thickened. Letting it sit still or overheat can cause the flour to clump or the cream to scorch on the base of the pan.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Asparagusfits about as well
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, pepper, egg, cream, butter, flour. 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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