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Creamed Salmon

A creamy salmon dish served over toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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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 ↓

Creamed Salmon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Open the can of salmon and remove the skin, bones, and oil; break the salmon into flakes.

Make the cream sauce

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Add the flour to the melted butter and stir to combine.

  3. Gradually add the milk, stirring constantly until smooth.

  4. Season the mixture with salt, pepper, mace, and minced parsley.

Cook and serve

  1. Add the salmon flakes and cook for 20 minutes, stirring continuously.

  2. Serve the creamed salmon on squares of toast.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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
Forms the main body of the dish and supplies its flavor and protein.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and carries flavor through the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth, cohesive cream sauce as it cooks.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, giving it a creamy, soft texture.

The step that matters

Adding the milk gradually while stirring. Flour mixed into melted butter forms a roux; adding liquid slowly while stirring lets starch disperse evenly, preventing lumps and producing a smooth sauce.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Dillfits better
  4. Macethe original

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