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Scalloped Salmon

A baked salmon dish layered with cracker crumbs and topped with a butter‑flour‑milk sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Scalloped Salmon

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Remove the bones and skin from the salmon and break it into pieces.

  2. In a baking dish, layer the salmon with alternating layers of cracker crumbs.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter and stir in the flour until smooth.

  2. Add the milk and cook until it boils.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the sauce over the salmon and cracker layers.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for one hour.

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

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Salmon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  5. Salmon + milktop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,577 recipes

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

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 and provides its flavor and flaky texture.
Cracker crumbs
Soak up the sauce and give the layers a soft, bound texture.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and helps the flour blend smoothly into the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth sauce that binds the layers together.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, adding moisture and creaminess.

The step that matters

Bring the sauce to a boil. Flour thickens milk only once its starch granules have swollen in hot liquid, so the sauce must reach a full boil to set properly. Stirring while adding the milk keeps the flour from forming lumps.

“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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