Skip to main content
Main

Salmon Puffs

Salmon puffs are baked pastries filled with salmon, almonds, onion, and spices, served with a butter‑flour sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Almond and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Salmon Puffs

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the puffs

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, mix the salmon, chopped almonds, grated onion, and white pepper.

  3. Gently fold in the unbeaten egg whites and whipped cream.

  4. Fill timbale molds with the mixture.

  5. Bake for 20 minutes.

Make the sauce

  1. Rub together the butter and flour in a saucepan.

  2. Slowly add the boiling water, stirring over heat until thickened.

  3. Remove from heat.

  4. Stir in the additional butter, egg yolks, and vinegar.

  5. Strain the sauce.

  6. Add chopped parsley.

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. Almond + flourtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Almond + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Almond + oniontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,769 recipes

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

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
Forms the body of the puffs and provides the main flavour.
Egg whites
Whipped structure that lifts the mixture and helps it puff as it bakes.
Heavy cream
Adds moisture and a tender, light texture to the puffs.
Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce and add richness and body.
Flour
Thickens the sauce with the butter as a roux.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour to the sauce base.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites and cream. Egg whites hold air only when whipped and folded gently; overmixing knocks out the air, so the puffs bake flat and dense instead of light.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, almond, onion, egg, cream, butter, flour):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, almond, onion, egg, cream, butter, flour. 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.

You might also like

Salmon SaladSalmon Salad155 recipesSalmon CroquettesSalmon Croquettes129 recipesAlmond SoupAlmond Soup60 recipesCanned SalmonCanned Salmon14 recipes