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Salmon Souffle

A baked dish of salmon mixed with a white sauce, crackers, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Sauce and ketchup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,099 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Salmon Souffle

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.

Make the base

  1. Make a thick white sauce by melting butter, adding flour, and gradually whisking in milk until smooth.

  2. Stir in cracker crumbs, onion juice, parsley, Worcestershire sauce, ketchup, and salmon.

  3. Heat the mixture thoroughly.

Bake and serve

  1. Add the beaten yolks of the eggs to the mixture.

  2. Fold in the beaten egg whites gently.

  3. Pour into a casserole or ramekins and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 25 minutes.

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. Sauce + ketchuptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,099 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  3. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 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
Whites trap air for lift, and yolks enrich the custard-like base for a soft, set texture.
All-purpose flour
Thickens the butter and milk into a white sauce that holds the mixture together.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the white sauce, adding moisture and body.
Salmon
Provides the main flavor and protein that gives the souffle its body.
Rolled cracker crumbs
Absorb liquid and add bulk, helping the mixture hold its shape.

The step that matters

Fold in the beaten egg whites gently. Egg whites hold air bubbles that make the souffle rise. Stirring or deflating them harshly knocks out that air, so the souffle bakes flat and dense.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Garlicfits about as well
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, milk, onion, sauce, ketchup, salmon. 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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