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Salmon Loaf

A steamed loaf made from minced salmon, eggs, butter, breadcrumbs, and milk, topped with a corn starch‑thickened sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 Loaf

Ingredients

Directions

Make the loaf

  1. Mince the salmon finely.

  2. In a bowl, beat the eggs and mix in the softened butter and bread crumbs.

  3. Season the mixture with salt and pepper.

  4. Combine the minced salmon with the egg mixture.

  5. Transfer the mixture to a buttered mold and steam for 1 hour.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. For the sauce, heat the milk and thicken it with corn starch.

  2. Stir in the butter and the liquor from the fish.

  3. Add the raw egg to the sauce and pour it over the loaf before serving.

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. Pepper + corntop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,324 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 crumbs and set into a firm, sliceable loaf when heated.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and give the loaf body so it holds together rather than turning wet.
Butter
Adds fat, richness and moisture to the loaf and enriches the sauce.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, which is then thickened.
Corn starch
Thickens the hot milk into a smooth sauce as its starch granules swell with heat.

The step that matters

Thicken the sauce with corn starch. Corn starch only thickens once the milk is hot enough for its starch granules to swell. Stirring constantly as it heats keeps the starch dispersed, so the sauce stays smooth instead of lumpy or thin.

“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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