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Salmon Timbales

A baked salmon dish with cream, bread, eggs, and mushrooms, served in molds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 Timbales

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the salmon

  1. Cook the salmon and let it cool, then remove bones and skin.

  2. Chop, pound, and sift the salmon, then add the salt, pepper, and nutmeg or mace.

Make the custard base

  1. Combine bread and cream in a saucepan and cook until smooth.

  2. Mix all ingredients except the eggs and let cool.

  3. Add the beaten eggs to the mixture and stir well.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into small molds or cups.

  2. Place the molds in a pan of hot water and bake for 30 minutes.

  3. Turn the timbales out onto a hot platter, garnish with parsley, and serve with cream or Bechamel sauce.

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 + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  3. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

  5. Bread + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Salmon
Provides the main body and flavour of the timbales.
Eggs
Set when baked, giving the timbales their firm, sliceable structure.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the mixture soft and custard-like.
Stale bread
Absorbs the cream and helps bind the mixture into a smooth, even texture.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Baking in a water bath. Baking the molds in a pan of hot water moderates the heat around them. Eggs set gently this way, so the timbales stay tender instead of curdling or becoming rubbery.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, cream, pepper, bread, butter, egg, mushroom):

  1. Nutmegthe original
  2. Parsleyfits about as well
  3. Capersfits less well
  4. Thymefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, cream, pepper, bread, butter, egg, mushroom. 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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