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Canned Salmon

A simple dish of canned salmon simmered in milk, thickened with corn starch, seasoned with salt, pepper, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Canned Salmon

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Canned Salmon

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the salmon

  1. Place the salmon in a small frying pan.

  2. Pour enough milk over the fish to nearly cover it.

  3. Cover the frying pan and let it simmer slowly, keeping the milk just at the bubbling point.

Thicken and serve

  1. Thicken the milk with corn-starch mixed with a little cold milk, adding gradually to the boiling milk.

  2. Season with salt, pepper, and butter.

  3. Serve on a hot platter, optionally on toasted bread.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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

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

  4. Corn + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,324 recipes

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

  5. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 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

Salmon
Provides the main protein and flavor that the milk sauce surrounds.
Milk
Forms the creamy sauce base that the starch thickens.
Corn-starch
Thickens the milk into a smooth, coating sauce when heated.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the corn-starch slurry. Cornstarch must be mixed with cold milk first and added gradually to hot milk, so it disperses evenly; added dry or all at once it clumps, and the sauce thickens unevenly.

“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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