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Salmon Loaf

A steamed loaf made from canned salmon, eggs, butter, crumbs, and seasonings, topped with a sauce of milk, flour, butter, ketchup, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread 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 ↓

Salmon Loaf

Ingredients

Directions

Make the loaf

  1. Mix the salmon, beaten eggs, melted butter, and cracker or bread crumbs to a smooth paste.

  2. Steam the mixture for 1 hour.

Make the sauce

  1. Combine sweet milk and flour in a saucepan and heat until thickened.

  2. Add butter, ketchup, nutmeg or mace, cayenne pepper, and salt to taste.

  3. Stir in the well beaten egg and boil for 1 minute.

  4. Pour over the loaf.

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. Butter + breadtop 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. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

Eggs
Bind the salmon mixture and set firm as the loaf cooks.
Cracker or bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the loaf body and a tender texture.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth white sauce.
Sweet milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, adding richness and softness.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and flavour in both the loaf and the sauce.

The step that matters

Stir in the well beaten egg. Adding beaten egg to a hot sauce can scramble it into lumps. Keep the sauce hot but off the strongest heat while stirring, so the egg thickens it smoothly.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Capersfits about as well
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Parsleyfits less well
  4. Cinnamonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, egg, butter, bread, milk, flour, ketchup. 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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