Skip to main content
Main

Salmon Loaf

A steamed loaf made from canned salmon, eggs, butter, breadcrumbs, and seasonings, served with a creamy sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Parsley and pepper 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 Loaf

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the loaf

  1. Drain the liquid from the salmon.

  2. Beat the eggs separately.

  3. Melt the butter over low heat.

  4. Combine the bread crumbs with the beaten eggs, and season with salt, pepper, and parsley.

  5. Mix the melted butter into the salmon, then add the egg and crumb mixture.

  6. Pour the mixture into a buttered mold and steam for 1 hour.

Make the sauce

  1. For the sauce, heat the milk to boiling.

  2. In a bowl, mix the corn starch and butter together.

  3. Add the salmon liquid and hot milk slowly to the corn starch mixture, stirring until smooth.

  4. Incorporate 1 well-beaten egg and cook until the sauce thickens.

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. Parsley + peppertop 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

Salmon
Forms the body of the loaf and provides the main flavor and protein structure.
Eggs
Bind the salmon and crumbs together and set during steaming to hold the loaf's shape.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and soften the texture, keeping the loaf moist and tender.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the loaf and carries flavor through the sauce.
Milk
Forms the base of the sauce, giving it a smooth, creamy body.
Corn starch
Thickens the sauce as it heats, giving it a smooth, glossy consistency.

The step that matters

Adding the hot milk to the corn starch. Adding liquid slowly while stirring keeps the starch dispersed, so the sauce becomes smooth rather than lumpy. Cooking until it thickens lets the starch gelatinize fully.

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.

More salmon loaf recipes

Sauce 5Steamed 4 See all 140 →

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesCorn FrittersCorn Fritters203 recipesSalmon SaladSalmon Salad155 recipesSalmon CroquettesSalmon Croquettes129 recipes