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Salmon Loaf

A steamed loaf of flaked salmon mixed with eggs, bread crumbs, and butter, topped with a creamy sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Salmon Loaf

Ingredients

Directions

Make the loaf

  1. In a bowl, mix the flaked salmon and bread crumbs.

  2. In another bowl, combine the beaten eggs, milk, salt, and pepper.

  3. Blend the egg mixture with the salmon mixture and add the melted butter.

  4. Pour the mixture into buttered molds and steam for 1½ hours.

Make the sauce

  1. For the sauce, blend flour and butter in a saucepan.

  2. Stir in 1 cup of hot milk and cook for 10 minutes.

  3. Add the slightly beaten egg and cook for 1 more minute.

Serve

  1. Turn the loaf out of the mold, pour the sauce over and around it, 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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, 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 flavor and the flaked body of the loaf.
Eggs
Set when heated, binding the salmon and crumbs into a firm loaf.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the egg and milk, giving the loaf a soft, tender texture.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the loaf.
Flour
Thickens the butter and hot milk into a smooth sauce.
Milk
Moistens the egg mixture and forms the liquid base of the sauce.

The step that matters

Add the slightly beaten egg and cook for 1 more minute.. Egg thickens the sauce as it gently heats, but the sauce should be off intense heat when the egg goes in. Too much heat can scramble the egg and leave the sauce grainy instead of smooth.

“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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