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Puree of Salmon

A creamy soup made by puréeing boiled salmon and mixing it with a milk and butter roux, seasoned with salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Puree of Salmon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the salmon

  1. Boil the salmon in boiling water with 1 tablespoon of salt for 15 minutes.

  2. Remove the salmon from the water, cool it, and remove the skin and bones.

  3. Rub the salmon through a sieve.

Make the soup

  1. In a pot, bring 2 quarts of milk to a boil.

  2. In another pan, mix 2 oz of butter and 2 oz of flour over heat until bubbling.

  3. Gradually add the boiling milk to the roux.

  4. Season the soup with 1 teaspoon of salt, 1/4 teaspoon of white pepper, and 1/4 teaspoon of nutmeg.

  5. Bring the soup to a boil.

  6. Stir the salmon puree into the soup.

  7. Serve immediately.

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

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

  2. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. White pepper + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,375 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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
Provides the main body and flavor of the soup once pureed.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the soup.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the roux.
Flour
Thickens the milk by forming a roux with the butter.

The step that matters

Adding the boiling milk to the roux. Adding hot milk gradually while whisking keeps the flour smooth, so lumps do not form and the soup thickens evenly.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, milk, butter, flour, nutmeg. 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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