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Salmon Loaf

A steamed loaf made from canned salmon, eggs, breadcrumbs, butter, parsley, milk, corn starch, tomato ketchup, and cayenne pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Corn and tomato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,099 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Salmon Loaf

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and steam

  1. Mix the salmon, beaten eggs, bread crumbs, softened butter, and minced parsley thoroughly.

  2. Pack the mixture into a mold lined with buttered paper.

  3. Steam for 1 hour.

Make the sauce

  1. For the sauce, thicken the milk with corn starch and add the heaping tablespoon of butter.

  2. Stir in the salmon liquor, tomato catsup, and cayenne pepper.

  3. Carefully stir in the unbeaten egg just before removing from heat.

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. Corn + tomatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,099 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Parsley + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,398 recipes

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

  5. Bread + tomatotop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,013 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

Salmon
Forms the body of the loaf and provides the main flavor.
Eggs
Bind the mixture so the loaf holds its shape when set by heat.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and lighten the texture of the loaf.
Corn starch
Thickens the milk sauce as it heats.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the loaf.

The step that matters

Carefully stir in the unbeaten egg just before removing from heat. Egg proteins set when heated, so adding raw egg to a hot sauce at the end, off the heat, lets it thicken gently without scrambling into lumps.

Swap the parsley

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

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

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