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Salmon Creams

Salmon paste mixed with almonds, onion juice, white pepper, egg whites, and whipped cream, baked in timbales, served with a butter‑flour sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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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 Creams

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 salmon

  1. Boil the salmon, then remove the skin and bones.

  2. Rub and pound the fish to a paste.

  3. Mix in the chopped almonds, onion juice, and white pepper.

  4. Gradually add the unbeaten egg whites.

  5. Carefully stir in the whipped cream until stiff.

Bake the creams

  1. Fill timbale molds and cook for 20 minutes at 350°F (175°C).

Make the sauce

  1. For the sauce, rub together the butter and flour.

  2. Gradually add the boiling water and stir over heat.

  3. Remove from heat and add the remaining butter, egg yolks, and vinegar.

  4. Strain the sauce and 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 main body of the cream, providing flavour and the base texture.
Egg whites
Set during cooking to give the creams structure and a light, airy texture.
Whipped cream
Adds fat and air, keeping the mixture light and moist as it cooks.
Butter
Enriches the sauce and, with flour, forms the roux that thickens it.
Flour
Combines with butter to form a roux that thickens the sauce.
Egg yolks
Enrich the sauce and help it thicken and set smoothly when gently heated.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolks to the sauce. Egg yolks can curdle or scramble if the sauce is too hot. Removing the sauce from heat before adding them lets them thicken it gently and evenly.

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.

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