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Salmi Sauce

A salmon mixture thickened with a white sauce, chilled, shaped into cork or egg forms, breaded and fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream 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 ↓

Salmi Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Prepare fish stock by boiling the remains of dressed salmon in 1 pint of water until reduced to ½ cup.

  2. Tear the salmon flesh into shreds.

  3. In a saucepan, melt butter and stir in flour until bubbling.

  4. Add the fish stock and cook until thick and smooth.

  5. Stir in thick cream, sherry or white wine, and beaten egg yolks, heating until just boiling.

  6. Fold in salmon flakes and ensure the mixture is thick like oatmeal porridge.

Set and shape

  1. Spread the mixture an inch thick on a buttered plate and refrigerate until cold.

  2. Once set, divide into pieces and shape into corks or eggs.

Fry and serve

  1. Coat in breadcrumbs and fry in very hot oil for 2 minutes.

  2. Garnish with fried parsley and serve with cucumber salad.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Fish + salmontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,078 recipes

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

  3. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

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

  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

Salmon flakes
Provide the main flavour and bulk that the croquettes are built around.
Egg yolks
Enrich and bind the mixture, helping it set firm when cooled.
Flour
Thickens the butter and stock into a base that holds the salmon together.
Thick cream
Adds richness and a smooth, moist texture to the mixture.
Sherry or white wine
Adds acidity and aroma that balance the richness of the cream and fish.

The step that matters

Chilling until fully set. The mixture must be thick and cold before shaping; if it is still soft, the pieces will slump and fall apart when coated and fried. Cooling lets the starch and egg proteins firm up into a stable mass.

Swap the parsley

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, butter, flour, cream, sherry, egg, 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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