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Salmon Cream

A steamed salmon paste mixed with onion juice, salt, pepper, egg whites, and whipped cream, set in a buttered mold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Salmon Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the salmon

  1. Boil the salmon until cooked, then remove the skin and bones.

  2. Rub and pound the fish into a smooth paste.

Make the mixture

  1. Mix in the onion juice, salt, and white pepper.

  2. Gradually stir in the beaten egg whites.

  3. Carefully fold in the whipped cream.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a well-buttered mold.

  2. Steam for 45 minutes.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Salmon + creamtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,401 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

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

  5. Salmon + eggtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,485 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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 and flavour of the cream once pounded into a paste.
Egg whites
Set during steaming to give the cream structure and a light, firm texture.
Whipped cream
Adds air and richness, keeping the mixture light and moist as it steams.

The step that matters

Carefully fold in the whipped cream.. Stirring vigorously knocks air out of the whipped cream, which makes the steamed cream dense instead of light. Gentle folding keeps the trapped air that gives the final texture its lift.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, onion, egg, cream, butter):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, onion, egg, cream, butter. 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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