Skip to main content
Main

Salmon Loaf

A baked loaf made from flaked salmon, eggs, breadcrumbs, butter, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Salmon Loaf

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the mixture

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Flake the salmon into a bowl.

  3. Add the beaten yolks of the eggs, bread crumbs, melted butter, parsley, cayenne, lemon juice, salt, and pepper to the salmon. Mix well.

  4. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form. Gently fold the egg whites into the salmon mixture.

Bake and serve

  1. Transfer the mixture to a greased loaf pan. Bake for 30 minutes.

  2. Serve with drawn butter sauce and garnish with 2 hard‑boiled eggs.

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  5. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks bind the loaf and whites, whipped and folded in, lighten its texture.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the loaf body so it holds its shape when sliced.
Melted butter
Adds richness and moisture, keeping the loaf tender as it bakes.
Salmon
Forms the main body of the loaf and supplies its flavor and protein structure.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Beaten whites trap air that lifts the loaf. Stirring instead of folding knocks that air out, leaving a denser, heavier loaf.

“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.

More salmon loaf recipes

You might also like