Skip to main content
Bread

How to Use Canned Salmon

A toasted bread sandwich topped with flaked canned salmon mixed with milk, egg, breadcrumbs, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pepper and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

How to Use Canned Salmon

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Flake the salmon and season with pepper and salt.

  2. Heat the salmon in a pan with the milk.

  3. Toast the bread slices.

  4. In a bowl, beat the egg and mix in the bread crumbs and a pinch of nutmeg.

  5. Spread the salmon mixture over the toasted bread and serve.

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. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  3. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

  4. Bread + nutmegtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,997 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Salmon
Provides the main protein and savory flavor of the topping.
Milk
Adds moisture and makes the salmon mixture softer and creamier when heated.
Egg
Binds the mixture together and helps it set lightly as it cooks.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and give the mixture body so it spreads without running.

The step that matters

Heat the salmon in a pan with the milk. Gentle heat keeps the milk from scorching or separating while the salmon warms through. Overheating dries the fish and tightens its texture, so the mixture stays moist and spreadable only when heated carefully.

Flavor stand-ins for the nutmeg

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

  1. Nutmegthe original
  2. Parsleyabout as good a flavor fit
  3. Dillabout as good a flavor fit

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, pepper, milk, bread, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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

CornbreadCornbread345 recipesBread PuddingBread Pudding336 recipesNut BreadNut Bread109 recipesWheat BreadWheat Bread65 recipes