Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓
To Cook Kippered Salmon
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the salmon
Cut the kippered salmon into convenient pieces.
Wrap the pieces in buttered parchment paper.
Broil them for a few minutes.
Make a wall of mashed potatoes in a dish.
Chop hard-boiled eggs.
Flake the salmon.
Make the sauce
Combine the eggs, flaked salmon, and milk in a saucepan.
Thicken the mixture with butter rolled in flour.
Stir until it boils.
Pour the mixture into the dish with the mashed potatoes around it.
Other salmon methods
Soak the salmon in boiling water.
Place it skin-side up on a dish and butter it.
Heat it by the fire.
Marinate the salmon in salad oil overnight.
Fry it lightly in the morning.
Soak the salmon for 3-4 hours.
Broil it.
Season with pepper while cooking.
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.
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,305 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Potato + milktop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,611 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + potatotop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,456 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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
- Kippered salmon
- Provides the main smoky, savoury flavour and the flaked meat of the dish.
- Hard-boiled eggs
- Add body and a firm, chopped texture to the creamy mixture.
- Rich new milk
- Supplies moisture and creaminess for the sauce.
- Butter
- Adds richness and fat, and coats the flour for smooth thickening.
- Flour
- Thickens the milk mixture into a sauce once it reaches a boil.
- Mashed potatoes
- Form a soft, starchy base around the sauce and absorb its moisture.
The step that matters
Stir until it boils. The flour must reach boiling so its starch swells and thickens the milk. Stopping early leaves a thin sauce with a raw floury taste.
Swap the potato
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, butter, egg, milk, flour, pepper):
- Chivefits about as well
- Asparagusfits about as well
- Potatothe original
- Capsicumfits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, butter, egg, milk, 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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