Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓
Creamed Salmon
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Heat the can of salmon in boiling water before opening.
Make the cream sauce
In a saucepan, combine milk and flour to make a cream sauce.
Add butter, salt, and pepper to the sauce, stirring until thickened.
Serve
Pour the cream sauce over the salmon placed on buttered 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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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 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 + milktop 16% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,577 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Flour and butter 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
- Provides the main protein and the flaked body of the dish.
- Flour
- Thickens the milk into a cream sauce as it cooks.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base of the sauce, giving it a smooth, creamy texture.
- Butter
- Adds richness and flavour to the sauce and toast.
The step that matters
Stirring the sauce until thickened. Flour must be whisked into the milk and kept moving while it heats, otherwise it can clump. Heating lets the starch granules swell and thicken the liquid into a smooth sauce.
“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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