Skip to main content
Main

Salmon Creams

A baked salmon custard with almonds, cream, and a buttery sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Almond and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Salmon Creams

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the salmon

  1. If using fresh salmon, boil it, then remove the bone and skin.

  2. Pound the fish to a smooth paste.

  3. Mix in the chopped almonds, onion juice, salt, and white pepper.

  4. Gradually add the unbeaten egg whites and carefully stir in the whipped cream.

Bake and serve

  1. Fill timbale molds with the mixture and place them in a baking pan of boiling water.

  2. Cook in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 20 minutes.

  3. Turn onto a heated platter.

Make the sauce

  1. For the sauce, rub together the flour and butter.

  2. Gradually add the boiling water, stirring over heat until thickened.

  3. Remove from heat and stir in the butter, egg yolks, tarragon vinegar, and parsley.

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. Almond + flourtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  3. Almond + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Almond + oniontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,769 recipes

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

Flour and butter 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
Forms the main body of the custard and provides its flavour.
Egg whites
Add structure as they set, lifting and firming the custard when baked.
Heavy cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the custard tender after baking.
Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce and add richness and smoothness to it.
Flour
Thickens the sauce when cooked with butter and boiling water.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolks to the hot sauce. If the sauce is still very hot when the yolks go in, they can scramble and curdle. Removing it from heat first lets the yolks thicken it gently and smoothly.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

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

Salmon SaladSalmon Salad155 recipesSalmon CroquettesSalmon Croquettes129 recipesAlmond SoupAlmond Soup60 recipesCanned SalmonCanned Salmon14 recipes