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Salmon Turbot

A baked custard of milk, flour, butter, eggs, and flaked salmon topped with bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Salmon Turbot

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the white sauce

  1. In a saucepan, cook the milk and flour together, stirring steadily for 3 minutes.

  2. Add the butter and blend it in, then remove from heat.

Assemble and bake

  1. When nearly cold, stir in the beaten eggs, salt, and pepper.

  2. Fold in the flaked salmon.

  3. Pour the mixture into a buttered pudding dish and top with bread crumbs.

  4. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes and serve hot.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth white sauce that holds the salmon together.
Eggs
Set when baked, binding the mixture into a firm, sliceable custard-like texture.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor and helps give the sauce a smooth, silky body.
Salmon
Provides the main flavor and protein, dispersed through the sauce.

The step that matters

Cooling before adding the eggs. If the sauce is still hot when the beaten eggs go in, they can scramble instead of blending smoothly. Letting it cool nearly completely first keeps the mixture smooth before baking sets it.

“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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