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Puree of Salmon

A creamy salmon puree made with milk, butter, flour, onion, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Puree of Salmon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the salmon

  1. Remove oil, bone, and skin from the salmon and chop the fish very fine.

Make the sauce

  1. Cook the onion in the milk for 10 minutes, then remove the onion.

  2. Thicken the milk with the butter and flour cooked together.

  3. Season with salt and pepper, then add the salmon.

  4. Heat until hot and 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.

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

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

  2. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 body and flavor of the puree once finely chopped.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the thickening sets and carries the flavors.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and cooks with the flour to help thicken the milk.
Flour
Thickens the milk when cooked with butter, giving the puree a smooth body.

The step that matters

Thicken the milk with the butter and flour cooked together. Flour must be cooked with the butter first so its starch swells smoothly into the milk. Adding it raw can leave lumps and a floury taste.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, milk, butter, flour, pepper. 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.

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