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 ↓
Scalloped Salmon
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Remove bones from the salmon and place it in a bowl.
Add butter and cream to the salmon and heat on the stove.
Assemble and bake
In a baking dish, layer bread crumbs and salmon mixture, seasoning with salt and pepper.
Add enough cream to moisten the layers.
Bake at 300°F (150°C) for 30 minutes.
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 + breadtop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Salmon + creamtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,401 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
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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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Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together20,964 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Salmon
- Provides the main body and flavor of the dish.
- Bread crumbs
- Form the layers and absorb liquid to give the dish structure.
- Butter
- Adds richness and fat, carrying flavor through the mixture.
- Cream
- Moistens the salmon and crumbs so they do not dry out in the oven.
The step that matters
Moistening the layers before baking. Bread crumbs absorb liquid unevenly, so the cream must be spread through every layer. Dry pockets stay dry and crumbly after baking, while overly wet areas turn soggy.
“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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