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Moulded Salmon

A steamed salmon dish made with eggs, butter, breadcrumbs, and a seasoned sauce.

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

Moulded Salmon

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the salmon mould

  1. Combine the chopped salmon with melted butter until smooth.

  2. Mix the beaten eggs with breadcrumbs, then season the mixture with pepper, salt, and parsley.

  3. Combine the salmon mixture with the egg mixture and mix well.

  4. Transfer the mixture to a buttered pudding mold.

  5. Steam or boil the mold for 30 minutes.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Heat the milk to a boil.

  2. Thicken the boiled milk with cornflour.

  3. Stir in butter.

  4. Add the raw egg, the ketchup, the mace, and the cayenne.

  5. Cook the sauce for 1 minute.

  6. Pour the sauce over the molded salmon when serving.

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

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

  3. Salmon + anchovytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together535 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Egg + anchovytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,330 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + anchovytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,697 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Salmon
Forms the body of the mould and gives it its main flavour.
Eggs
Bind the mixture so it holds its shape when steamed or boiled.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the salmon and enriches the sauce.
Breadcrumbs
Absorb moisture and help the mould hold together with a tender texture.
Milk
Forms the base of the sauce, which thickens when cornflour is added.
Cornflour
Thickens the boiled milk into a smooth, glossy sauce.

The step that matters

Thicken the milk gently and keep the sauce from boiling hard after the raw egg goes in. Cornflour thickens when boiled, but a raw egg can scramble or curdle if the sauce gets too hot. Adding it off the heat or stirring over low heat keeps the sauce smooth.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, egg, butter, pepper, parsley, milk, anchovy. 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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