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Salmon, Pudding

A steamed salmon custard with butter, eggs, breadcrumbs, and a lemon‑mace‑cayenne sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Salmon, Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the salmon

  1. Drain the salmon and mince it, reserving the liquid.

  2. In a bowl, mix the minced salmon with melted butter, bread crumbs, and seasoning.

  3. Add the beaten eggs and combine well.

  4. Transfer the mixture to a buttered mold.

Steam the pudding

  1. Place the mold in a pan filled with hot water.

  2. Cover the pan.

  3. Steam in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 1 hour, ensuring the water remains boiling.

  4. Cool the mold in cold water for 1 minute.

  5. Turn the cooled mold out onto a flat dish.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. In a saucepan, boil the milk and thicken it with corn starch.

  2. Stir in the reserved salmon liquid, butter, beaten egg, lemon juice, mace, and cayenne pepper.

  3. Remove the sauce from heat and cover.

  4. Let the sauce stand for 3 minutes.

  5. Pour the sauce over the salmon pudding.

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 + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  4. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Corn + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,927 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the salmon and bread crumbs and help the pudding set when steamed.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the butter and moisture and give the pudding a soft, firm body.
Salmon
Forms the main body of the pudding and provides its flavor.
Milk
Forms the base of the sauce, which thickens with corn starch for a smooth, creamy texture.
Corn starch
Thickens the milk into a smooth sauce as it heats.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to both the pudding and the sauce.

The step that matters

Keep the steaming water boiling. Steam heat cooks the pudding gently and evenly. If the water stops boiling, the pudding cooks unevenly and may turn out dense or wet in the centre.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, egg, butter, bread, milk, corn, lemon):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, egg, butter, bread, milk, corn, lemon. 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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