Why it works: Milk and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓
Dryed Salmon with Porched Eggs
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the salmon
Soak the salmon slices in milk for 3 hours.
Remove the salmon from the milk and wipe them dry.
Broil the salmon over a clear fire until cooked.
Assemble and sauce
Serve the salmon on fried or toasted bread.
Top with 8 poached eggs.
Mix the essence of veal, cream, and egg yolks to make a sauce.
Drizzle the sauce around the toasts.
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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Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together11,466 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
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Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together22,662 recipes
Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
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Salmon + creamtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,401 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
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Salmon + eggtop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,485 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Salmon + milktop 16% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,577 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Salmon
- Provides the main savoury flesh; soaking in milk mellows its saltiness before broiling.
- Egg yolks
- Enrich the sauce, thickening it and giving it a smooth, rich texture.
- Cream
- Adds moisture and richness to the sauce, softening its flavour.
- Poached eggs
- Add soft, runny yolk that moistens the dish when broken over the salmon.
The step that matters
Mixing the sauce. Egg yolks thicken when gently heated; if the sauce is overheated or added to a hot pan without care, it can scramble and turn grainy instead of smooth.
“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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