Why it works: Flour and fennel work together. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 455 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Timbales of Salmon
Ingredients
Directions
Make the cases
Mix egg, flour, and milk into a batter to make timbale cases.
Fry the batter until very crisp, then dry in a cool oven for a few minutes.
Fill and serve
Break the cooked salmon into pieces and mix with the velouté sauce.
Stir the salmon mixture over the fire for a few minutes, then fill the timbale cases.
Serve hot on a dish paper garnished with fennel or another suitable garnish.
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.
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Flour + fenneltop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together455 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Salmon + fenneltop 16% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together253 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
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Egg + salmontop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,485 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
- Egg
- Binds the batter so the timbale cases hold their shape.
- Flour
- Forms the batter structure that fries into a crisp case.
- Milk
- Moistens the flour to form a pourable batter that cooks through.
- Cooked salmon
- Provides the main flavour and flaky texture of the filling.
- Velouté sauce
- Binds the salmon into a moist, spoonable filling.
The step that matters
Frying the batter until very crisp. The batter must cook through and brown fully so the case becomes firm and holds the filling without going soft or greasy.
Swap the fennel
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, flour, milk, salmon, sauce):
- Capersfits better
- Jalapenofits better
- Nutmegfits better
- Fennelthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against egg, flour, milk, salmon, sauce. 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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