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Creamed Salmon

A creamy salmon dish made with butter, flour, milk, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Creamed Salmon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Drain the liquid from the can of salmon.

  2. In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  3. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Make the sauce

  1. In a bowl, mix the flour with the milk until smooth.

  2. Add the flour mixture to the heated butter and stir until hot.

  3. Add the salmon and heat gently on low until warmed through.

Serve

  1. Transfer to a deep platter and serve hot.

  2. Drizzle with lemon juice if desired.

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 + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

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

Butter
Adds richness and flavor to the base of the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth, creamy sauce as it heats.
Milk
Forms the liquid of the cream sauce, giving it body and softness.
Salmon
Provides the main protein and flavor, warmed through in the sauce.

The step that matters

Mixing the flour into the milk until smooth. Flour clumps if it hits hot liquid or is not fully dispersed first, leaving lumps in the sauce. Whisking it smooth in cold milk before adding it to the butter lets the starch hydrate evenly, so the sauce thickens without lumps.

“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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