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Moulded Salmon

A salmon dish steamed or boiled in a mold, topped with a buttered sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Moulded Salmon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the salmon

  1. Chop the salmon finely.

  2. In a bowl, rub the salmon with the back of a silver spoon, adding the melted butter until smooth.

  3. Beat the breadcrumbs into the eggs, season, and mix with the salmon mixture.

Mould and steam

  1. Transfer the mixture into a buttered pudding mold.

  2. Steam or boil for 30 minutes.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. For the sauce, heat the milk to a boil and thicken with cornflour.

  2. Add butter, then the raw egg, ketchup, mace, and cayenne, stirring carefully.

  3. Boil the sauce for 1 minute to cook the egg.

  4. Pour the sauce over the molded salmon and serve.

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

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

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

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

  3. Salmon + anchovytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together535 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Egg + anchovytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,330 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + anchovytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,697 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Salmon
Forms the main body of the mould, providing flavour and substance.
Eggs
Bind the salmon mixture so it holds its shape when steamed.
Butter
Adds richness and smoothness to the salmon mixture and the sauce.
Breadcrumbs
Absorb moisture and help the mixture set into a firm, sliceable mould.
Milk
Forms the base of the sauce, which thickens with cornflour.
Cornflour
Thickens the milk into a smooth, glossy sauce.

The step that matters

Boil the sauce for 1 minute to cook the egg. The raw egg added to the sauce must reach a boil to be cooked and safe to eat. Stirring carefully prevents it from scrambling into lumps in the hot milk.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, egg, butter, pepper, parsley, milk, anchovy):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, egg, butter, pepper, parsley, milk, anchovy. 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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