Skip to main content
Main

Salmon Loaf

A baked loaf made from canned salmon, butter, crumbs, eggs, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Salmon Loaf

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

  1. Mince the drained salmon.

  2. Combine the minced salmon with melted butter, bread or cracker crumbs, pepper, salt, minced parsley, the whole egg, and the beaten egg yolks. Mix well.

  3. Place the mixture in a buttered mold.

Bake and serve

  1. Set the mold in a pan of water.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for about 45 minutes.

  3. Set the mold in cold water for a minute.

  4. Turn it out onto a platter and serve hot.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

  3. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  4. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Bread + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,588 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the mixture and set into a firm loaf when baked.
Salmon
Provides the main body and flavor of the loaf.
Bread or cracker crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the loaf a tender, sliceable structure.
Melted butter
Adds fat for richness and a moister texture.

The step that matters

Set the mold in a pan of water. A water bath surrounds the mold with gentle, even heat, so the egg-based mixture sets without curdling, drying or browning too fast on the outside.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Capersfits about as well
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Tarragonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, butter, bread, pepper, egg. 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.

More salmon loaf recipes

Sauce 5Steamed 4 See all 140 →

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesSalmon SaladSalmon Salad155 recipesSalmon CroquettesSalmon Croquettes129 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipes