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Salmon Turbot

A baked salmon dish with a creamy sauce, topped with breadcrumbs and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 Turbot

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the cream sauce

  1. Boil the cream and milk mixture in a saucepan.

  2. Mix cornstarch with a little cold milk, then add to the boiling mixture.

  3. Cook for 10 minutes, stirring constantly, and add salt.

Assemble and bake

  1. Layer salmon and dressing in a baking dish until all ingredients are used.

  2. Sprinkle the top with bread crumbs and bits of butter.

  3. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 15 to 20 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve with slices of lemon.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Salmon + creamtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,401 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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 dish, providing flaked protein and a firm, meaty texture.
Cream and milk
Form the sauce base, providing richness and a smooth, creamy texture when heated.
Cornstarch
Thickens the boiling cream and milk into a smooth sauce that holds the layers together.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden topping as they bake.
Butter
Adds fat that helps the topping brown and gives a rich flavor.

The step that matters

Adding cornstarch to the boiling mixture. Cornstarch must be dispersed in cold liquid first, then added to hot liquid and kept at a boil while stirring. Added dry or lumpy, it clumps and the sauce stays thin or grainy instead of thickening smoothly.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Coconutfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, cream, milk, bread, butter. 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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