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Bisque of Salmon

A creamy soup made with salmon, rice, milk, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Bisque of Salmon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rice

  1. Heat the hot water and cold cooked rice, then mash through a strainer.

Make the salmon base

  1. In a pot, combine the salmon, salt, bay leaf, diced onion, white pepper, and water.

  2. Let it stand on low heat until steaming hot.

Combine and serve

  1. In a double boiler, heat the milk.

  2. Strain the salmon mixture and add it to the milk.

  3. Add the strained rice and beat in the butter.

  4. Serve hot.

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. Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Rice + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

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

  4. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Rice + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Cooked rice
Thickens the bisque and gives it a smooth, creamy body once mashed and strained.
Salmon
Provides the main flavour and protein of the bisque.
Milk
Forms the creamy liquid base and adds mild sweetness and richness.
Butter
Adds fat for a rounder mouthfeel and richer flavour.
Onion
Adds aromatic flavour as it steeps in the salmon mixture.

The step that matters

Heating the milk in a double boiler. Milk scorches and can curdle or form a skin if it gets too hot too fast. Gentle indirect heat keeps it smooth before the salmon mixture is added.

Swap the white pepper

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, salmon, onion, milk, butter. 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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