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Salmon Sauce

A creamy sauce made with salmon liquor, corn starch, butter, tomato catsup, milk, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Corn and tomato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,099 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Salmon Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Add melted butter to strained salmon liquor.

  2. Add milk and bring to a boil.

Thicken and serve

  1. Dilute corn starch with 2 tablespoons cold milk, then slowly add to the mixture while stirring constantly until smooth and glossy.

  2. Stir in tomato catsup, salt, and pepper.

  3. Beat well with a wire whisk and pour around Salmon Loaf.

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. Corn + tomatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,099 recipes

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

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  4. Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  5. Corn + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,324 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Salmon liquor
Provides moisture and the main savory, fish-based flavor of the sauce.
Corn starch
Thickens the liquid as it heats, giving the sauce body and a glossy finish.
Melted butter
Adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel.
Milk
Adds creaminess and mildness, softening the sauce's flavor.
Tomato catsup
Adds sweetness, acidity, and color to the sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the corn starch mixture. Starch lumps if added undiluted or too quickly to hot liquid. Dissolving it in cold milk first and stirring constantly lets the granules disperse, then swell evenly into a smooth, glossy thickened sauce.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, corn, butter, milk, pepper):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, corn, butter, milk, pepper. 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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