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Canned Salmon

A canned salmon dish served with a butter‑flour tomato ketchup gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Canned Salmon

Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Canned Salmon

Ingredients

Directions

Heat the salmon

  1. Place the can of salmon in boiling water for 30 minutes, ensuring the water remains at boiling heat.

  2. Remove the can.

  3. Wipe the can dry.

  4. Make a small hole in the top with scissors to pour the juice into a tin cup.

  5. Keep the juice warm on the stove without boiling.

Make the gravy

  1. If there's not enough juice, add 1 tablespoon of boiling water.

  2. Mix 1 teaspoon of butter with ½ teaspoon of flour.

  3. Stir the butter‑flour mixture into the juice.

  4. Let the mixture boil for 2 minutes.

  5. Add a pinch of salt and 1 tablespoon of tomato ketchup to the mixture.

Serve

  1. Cut the entire top off the can.

  2. Transfer the salmon to a warm chafing dish.

  3. Serve the gravy in a separate dish, 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + ketchuptop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,435 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  4. Salmon + tomatotop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,439 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Butter + tomatotop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,918 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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 protein and flesh that the dish is built around.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour into the gravy.
Flour
Thickens the juice into a smooth gravy as it cooks.
Tomato ketchup
Adds sweetness and acidity to season the gravy.

The step that matters

Keep the juice warm without boiling. Holding the juice just below a boil keeps it hot and smooth. Once the flour is stirred in, the gravy must boil briefly so the starch fully thickens and loses its raw taste.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Horseradishfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

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