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Creamed Salmon

A creamy salmon dish made with milk, butter, eggs, flour, onion, and seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Creamed Salmon

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan and stir in the flour until creamy.

  2. Gradually add the hot milk, stirring continuously.

  3. Add the chopped onion, salt, and pepper.

Cook and serve

  1. Break in the eggs and cook on low heat until the eggs set and remain in chunks when stirred.

  2. Remove the skin and bones from the salmon, then add it to the mixture.

  3. Return to the heat and let it boil once before serving.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Salmon
Forms the main body of the dish and gives it its flavor.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavor and giving the sauce a smooth texture.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a creamy sauce when cooked with the butter.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, giving it body and creaminess.
Eggs
Set on gentle heat to add structure, giving soft chunks throughout the sauce.

The step that matters

Cooking the eggs on low heat. Eggs proteins set at moderate temperatures, and high heat or boiling too early can make them curdle or turn rubbery. Gentle heat keeps them in soft, tender chunks.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, milk, butter, egg, 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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