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Salmon Forcemeat for Garnishing, Etc

A salmon forcemeat made with butter, panada, egg, and sauce, formed into cakes for garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Salmon Forcemeat for Garnishing, Etc

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the salmon

  1. Lift the flesh from the backbone of the cooked salmon and tear it into flakes.

  2. Rub the fish through a sieve into a bowl.

Make the forcemeat

  1. In a mortar, pound the salmon pulp with the butter and panada.

  2. Season with pepper and coarse sea salt, then moisten with the raw egg and a little rich white sauce.

  3. Poach one cake in boiling water to check the consistency.

  4. If too stiff, add more sauce or cream.

Shape and store

  1. Form the mixture into cakes.

  2. Keep the forcemeat in a cool place until needed.

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. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Salmon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  3. Salmon + eggtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,485 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Salmon + saucetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,765 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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 flavour of the forcemeat.
Butter
Adds fat for a rich, smooth texture and moistness.
Panada
Binds the mixture and gives it body so it holds its shape.
Raw egg
Helps bind the forcemeat and set it when cooked.

The step that matters

Checking the consistency with a test cake. Poaching one cake shows whether the forcemeat is firm enough to hold its shape without being too stiff. If it is too stiff, the cooked forcemeat can turn dense and tough, so adding sauce or cream loosens it before the batch is shaped.

“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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