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Salmon Loaf

A baked loaf of minced salmon mixed with eggs, butter, breadcrumbs, and milk, topped with a thickened milk sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread 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 Loaf

Ingredients

Directions

Make the loaf

  1. Mince the salmon finely.

  2. In a bowl, combine the minced salmon, eggs, melted butter, bread crumbs, salt, and pepper. Mix well and transfer to a buttered mold.

  3. Steam for 1 hour.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. For the sauce, heat the milk and thicken it with corn starch and butter.

  2. Add the liquor from the fish and a raw egg to the sauce, then pour it over the loaf.

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

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

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

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

  3. Bread + fishtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  5. Salmon + fishtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,078 recipes

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

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 help the loaf set firm when steamed.
Salmon
Provides the main body and flavor of the loaf.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the loaf a softer, tender texture.
Corn starch
Thickens the milk sauce into a smooth, glossy coating.
Milk
Forms the base of the sauce, adding creaminess and body.

The step that matters

Thickening the sauce. Corn starch must be heated in the milk until it swells and thickens. Stirring it smooth first prevents lumps, and adding the raw egg while the sauce is hot but not boiling keeps the egg from scrambling.

“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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