Name: Baked Salmon or Lobster
Ingredients: 2-pound can of salmon or lobster; 4 hard-boiled egg yolks; 1 teaspoon curry powder; 2 tablespoons butter; 1 teaspoon flour; 1 pint milk; Salt to taste; Cayenne pepper to taste

Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Baked Salmon or Lobster

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

Combine milk, butter, and flour in a saucepan to make a thick drawn butter. Adjust thickness with more flour if needed.
Remove all bones and skin from the salmon or lobster.
Mash the hard-boiled egg yolks until smooth and mix with the drawn butter.
Add the fish, salt, cayenne pepper, and curry powder to the mixture.

Bake and serve

Transfer to a baking dish, sprinkle with cracker crumbs, and dot with butter.
Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 20 minutes.

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.

Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Salmon + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,481 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, 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 or lobster: Provides the main body and flavor of the dish.
Hard-boiled egg yolks: Mashed into the sauce to add richness and a creamy, thick texture.
Butter: Adds fat and richness to the drawn butter and the baked topping.
Flour: Thickens the milk and butter into a sauce that holds the mixture together.
Milk: Forms the liquid base of the thick sauce with butter and flour.

The step that matters

Make the thick drawn butter. Flour must be cooked smoothly into the milk and butter to thicken evenly. Lumps or a sauce that is too thin will leave the mixture loose and hard to hold together when baked.

“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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Baked Salmon or Lobster