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Salmon Roll

A steamed salmon roll made with milk, breadcrumbs, eggs, parsley, onion juice, butter, salt, pepper, and mace, served with a parsley‑mace sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Salmon Roll

Ingredients

Directions

Make the salmon roll

  1. Drain the juice from the salmon and break it up finely.

  2. Mix the salmon with milk, bread crumbs, beaten eggs, parsley, onion juice, butter, salt, pepper, and mace.

  3. Put the mixture into a mold and steam for three hours.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. For the sauce, boil a sprig of parsley and a little mace in ½ pint of milk, then remove from heat.

  2. Cream together 1 tablespoon each of butter and flour, add to the milk, and let it boil.

  3. If desired, add beaten egg just before serving.

  4. Serve the sauce in a pitcher and add to the fish when served.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set firmly when steamed.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and give the roll a soft, tender body.
Salmon
Forms the main body of the roll and supplies its flavor.
Milk
Adds moisture to the mixture and forms the base of the sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving a smoother texture and flavor.

The step that matters

Steaming the roll. Steaming gently at a steady low simmer sets the egg-bound mixture evenly. Boiling too hard or letting the water run dry can make the roll rubbery or uneven.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, milk, bread, egg, parsley, butter, 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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