Name: Kedgeree of Salmon
Ingredients: 1 pound boiled salmon, cut into small pieces; 3 or 4 hard-boiled eggs, cut into small pieces; 1 pound well-boiled pilaff rice; ¾ pint Bechamel sauce, flavored with a small amount of curry; Butter for greasing the mold

Why it works: Sauce and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Kedgeree of Salmon

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

1 pound boiled salmon, cut into small pieces
3 or 4 hard-boiled eggs, cut into small pieces
1 pound well-boiled pilaff rice
¾ pint Bechamel sauce, flavored with a small amount of curry
Butter for greasing the mold

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

Remove the skin and bones from the salmon.
In a bowl, mix the salmon, hard-boiled eggs, pilaff rice, and Bechamel sauce.
Grease a mold with butter and fill it with the mixture.

Bake and serve

Cover the top of the mold with a piece of paper.
Place the mold in a stewpan of boiling water.
Put the stewpan in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 15 minutes.
Turn the mold out onto a hot dish to serve.

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.

Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together15,338 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Rice + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,645 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Salmon + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,481 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
Salmon + eggtop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,485 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Sauce and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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 flaky body and flavor of the dish.
Hard-boiled eggs: Add richness and a firm, sliced texture to the mixture.
Pilaff rice: Gives bulk and a tender, absorbent base that holds the mixture together.
Bechamel sauce: Binds the ingredients with a creamy moisture and carries the curry flavor.

The step that matters

Fill the mold and bake in a water bath. The stewpan of boiling water surrounds the mold so the custard-like sauce heats gently and evenly. Covering the top with paper stops a dry crust forming, keeping the mixture moist and set.

“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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Kedgeree of Salmon