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Scalloped Salmon

A baked salmon dish with white sauce, eggs, parsley, and breadcrumb topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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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 ↓

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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the white sauce

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat, then stir in the flour to make a roux.

  3. Gradually add the milk, stirring constantly until the sauce thickens.

  4. Season the sauce with pepper and coarse sea salt.

Assemble and bake

  1. In a baking dish, layer the salmon, white sauce, diced eggs, and parsley.

  2. Repeat the layers, finishing with a layer of white sauce.

  3. Top with bread crumbs and dot with butter.

  4. Bake for 25-30 minutes until golden and bubbly.

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 + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Canned salmon
Forms the main body of the dish, providing protein and flaky texture.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk into a smooth white sauce as a roux.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the white sauce, giving it a creamy texture.
Butter
Enriches the sauce with fat and flavor, and browns the crumb topping.
Hard boiled eggs
Add richness and a soft, creamy contrast to the flaked salmon.

The step that matters

Stirring the milk into the roux. Adding milk gradually while stirring constantly keeps the flour evenly dispersed, so the sauce thickens smoothly instead of forming lumps.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Capersfits about as well
  4. Cinnamonfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, egg, butter, flour, milk, pepper, bread. 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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