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Moulded Salmon

A steamed salmon dish mixed with eggs, butter, breadcrumbs, and seasonings, served with a sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the salmon

  1. Chop the salmon finely and mash it in a bowl with the back of a spoon, adding the melted butter until smooth.

  2. In a separate bowl, mix the breadcrumbs into the beaten eggs and season with pepper, salt, and parsley.

  3. Combine the salmon mixture with the egg mixture until well blended.

Mould and steam

  1. Transfer the mixture to a buttered pudding mold and steam or boil for 30 minutes.

Make the sauce and serve

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

  2. Add 1 tablespoon of butter, 1 raw egg, 1 teaspoon of anchovy, mushroom, or tomato ketchup, a pinch of mace, and a pinch of cayenne.

  3. Carefully boil the sauce for 1 minute to cook the egg, then pour it over the molded salmon 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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  3. Salmon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  4. Salmon + eggtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,485 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 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 body of the dish, giving the moulded mixture its main flavour and substance.
Eggs
Bind the salmon and breadcrumbs so the mixture holds its shape when set by heat.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, keeping the mashed salmon smooth and tender.
Fine breadcrumbs
Absorb moisture and help give the moulded mixture a softer, more cohesive body.

The step that matters

Boil the sauce for 1 minute after adding the raw egg. The raw egg must be heated enough to cook and thicken safely; boiling for the stated minute cooks the egg, while under-heating leaves it raw and overheating can curdle the sauce.

Swap the parsley

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

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

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