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An Excellent Dish of Dried Salmon

A dish of flaked dried salmon mixed with eggs, cream, butter, flour, and served over mashed potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

An Excellent Dish of Dried Salmon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Flake the dried salmon.

  2. In a bowl, combine the flaked salmon, chopped eggs, thin cream, and butter mixed with flour.

Cook and serve

  1. Skim the mixture and stir until it is boiling hot.

  2. Form a wall of mashed potatoes around the inner edge of a dish.

  3. Pour the hot mixture into the center of the dish.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + potatotop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

  4. Salmon + creamtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,401 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Flour + potatotop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 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

Dried salmon
Provides the main flavor and flaked texture of the dish.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add richness and a soft, binding body to the mixture.
Thin cream
Adds moisture and richness, giving the mixture a smooth, saucy texture.
Butter
Contributes fat for richness and a silky mouthfeel.
Flour
Thickens the butter and cream mixture so it becomes smooth and cohesive when heated.

The step that matters

Skim the mixture and stir until it is boiling hot. Flour thickens only when heated enough to gelatinize its starch, so the mixture must reach a full boil and be stirred to stay smooth without lumps.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, egg, cream, butter, flour. 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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