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Salmon Pudding

A baked salmon custard served with a buttered sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Salmon Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pudding

  1. Mince the salmon and drain off all the liquid for the sauce.

  2. Mix the melted butter with the salmon, then add the bread crumbs, pepper, salt, parsley, and beaten eggs.

  3. Transfer the mixture to a buttered pudding mold.

Steam the pudding

  1. Place the mold in a dripping pan filled with boiling water, ensuring the water stays at a fast boil, adding more as it evaporates.

  2. Cook for 1 hour.

  3. When done, briefly set the mold in cold water before serving.

Make the sauce

  1. For the sauce, heat the milk to a boil and thicken with corn starch.

  2. Stir in the beaten egg, the reserved liquid from the salmon, and butter.

  3. Season and cook for 3 minutes in hot water, then add lemon juice and capers.

Serve

  1. Pour the sauce over the pudding and serve, cutting the pudding into slices.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the mixture and set it into a firm, sliceable pudding when cooked.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the pudding body and a soft, tender structure.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the pudding and silky body to the sauce.
Corn starch
Thickens the milk into a smooth sauce as it heats.
Milk
Forms the base of the sauce, which thickens into a creamy coating.
Lemon
Adds acidity that brightens the rich salmon and butter sauce.

The step that matters

Keep the water at a fast boil in the dripping pan. Steam needs a steady, vigorous boil to cook the pudding evenly. If the water drops, the pudding cooks slowly and can turn out heavy or unevenly set, so the water must be topped up as it evaporates.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Cinnamonfits about as well
  4. Dillfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, egg, butter, bread, pepper, milk, corn. 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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