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Creamed Salmon

A baked salmon dish topped with a creamy sauce and breadcrumbs.

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 ↓

Creamed Salmon

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 the salmon

  1. Empty the tin of salmon onto a dish and flake it with a fork.

Make the sauce

  1. In a double boiler, melt the butter and flour until smooth.

  2. Slowly add the milk and bring to a boil, then remove from heat.

  3. Stir in the two well-beaten eggs.

Bake and serve

  1. In a baking dish, layer the flaked salmon and sauce alternately until all ingredients are used.

  2. Top with a layer of cracker or bread crumbs.

  3. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 15 minutes and serve hot.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, 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
Forms the main body of the dish and supplies its flavour and protein structure.
Milk
Makes the liquid base of the sauce, giving it a smooth, creamy texture.
Eggs
Beaten into the sauce, they thicken it and help it set when baked.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and carries flavour into the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk into a smooth sauce that holds the layers together.

The step that matters

Stir in the beaten eggs. Eggs thicken when gently heated and set when baked. If the sauce is too hot when they go in, they can scramble and turn grainy, so it should be off the heat and well mixed before baking.

“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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