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Escalloped Salmon

A baked salmon dish with milk, butter, and bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Escalloped 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.

Prepare the dressing

  1. Drain the liquor from the salmon and discard it.

  2. In a saucepan, boil the milk with the butter, salt, and pepper.

Layer and bake

  1. In a baking dish, layer half of the bread crumbs, followed by half of the salmon, and half of the dressing.

  2. Repeat the layers, finishing with a top layer of bread crumbs.

  3. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until brown.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

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

  5. Salmon + milktop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,577 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

What each ingredient does

Salmon
Forms the bulk of the dish and provides the main flavour and protein structure.
Milk
Forms the moist, creamy dressing that soaks into the crumbs and keeps the layers tender.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the dressing, giving a softer texture and smoother flavour.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the dressing and give the casserole body, holding the layers together while baking.

The step that matters

Bake until brown. Baking at 350°F sets the dressing and crumbs and browns the top through the Maillard reaction; underbaking leaves the custard-like dressing wet and pale, while overbaking can dry the salmon.

“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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