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Scalloped Salmon

A baked salmon dish layered with breadcrumbs and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Bread and butter 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

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the salmon

  1. Open the can and turn the salmon into a dish.

  2. Pour off all the oil into a clean bowl; remove the bones and skin from the fish and flake it.

Assemble the dish

  1. Put a layer of crumbs in the bottom of a buttered baking dish.

  2. Add a layer of salmon, sprinkle with pepper and salt, and cover with bread crumbs.

  3. Add another layer of salmon and repeat until all the salmon is used.

  4. Pour milk over the salmon, cover the top with crumbs, and dot with butter.

Bake

  1. Bake for 20 minutes in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C).

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Bread + milktop 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 main body of the dish and provides its flaky texture and flavor.
Bread crumbs
Form the layers that soak up milk and give the dish body and structure.
Milk
Moistens the crumbs and salmon so the dish stays tender as it bakes.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the top crumbs brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Pour the milk over the layers before baking. The milk must soak evenly through the crumb layers to moisten the dish; uneven pouring leaves dry patches that do not become custardy as it bakes.

“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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