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Salmon Loaf

Salmon loaf is a steamed loaf made with salmon, bread crumbs, eggs, and seasonings, served with a butter-sugar-mustard sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Salmon Loaf

Ingredients

Directions

Make the loaf

  1. In a bowl, stir together the bread crumbs and eggs.

  2. Add the salmon, lemon juice, celery seed, salt, and pepper. Mix well.

  3. Transfer the mixture to a dish and steam for 2 hours.

Make the sauce

  1. Cream together the butter, sugar, mustard, salt, and pepper.

  2. In a double boiler, combine the egg yolks and milk; cook until thickened, stirring constantly.

  3. Just before removing from heat, stir in the vinegar and chopped celery or seed.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Lemon + celerytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  5. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the crumbs and salmon together and help the loaf set as it cooks.
Bread crumbs
Add body and absorb moisture so the loaf holds its shape rather than turning wet.
Salmon
Forms the main body of the loaf and supplies its flavor.
Egg yolks
Thicken the milk into a smooth, rich custard-style sauce as they cook.
Milk
Forms the base of the sauce and, with the yolks, gives it a creamy texture.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the sauce and balances its richness and sweetness.

The step that matters

Cook the sauce until thickened, stirring constantly. Egg yolks set when heated, so they can curdle or scramble if the heat is too high or they are left unstirred. Constant stirring spreads the heat evenly and keeps the sauce smooth.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, bread, egg, lemon, pepper, butter, sugar):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, bread, egg, lemon, pepper, butter, sugar. 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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