Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Canned Salmon with Cream Sauce
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the salmon
Heat the canned salmon and season to taste.
Place the heated salmon on butter toast.
Make the sauce and serve
In a saucepan, melt the butter and stir in the flour.
Add the boiling water and boil for 2 minutes, stirring continually.
Pour the cream dressing over the salmon on toast.
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.
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Salmon + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,481 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
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Salmon + flourtop 27% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,776 recipes
Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).
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
- Provides the main protein and flavor, flaking into tender pieces when heated.
- Butter
- Adds richness and a savory, toasted flavor to the toast and the sauce base.
- Flour
- Thickens the sauce as its starch swells in the hot butter and boiling water.
The step that matters
Boil the flour sauce while stirring continually. Flour starch only thickens evenly when it is heated in liquid and kept moving. If stirring stops, the starch clumps and forms lumps, and the sauce stays thin in some areas and gluey in others.
“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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