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Salmon Salad

Salmon salad with egg yolk dressing, vinegar, mustard, and lettuce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Salmon Salad

Why it works: Mustard and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,356 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Salmon Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Poach and marinate the salmon

  1. Place the can of salmon in a kettle of hot water.

  2. Boil the salmon for 20 minutes.

  3. Remove the salmon from the can.

  4. Pour off the juice or oil from the salmon.

  5. Add a few cloves around the salmon.

  6. Sprinkle the salmon with coarse sea salt and black or cayenne pepper.

  7. Cover the salmon with cold vinegar.

  8. Let the salmon stand for 1 day.

Make the dressing

  1. Beat the yolks of 2 raw eggs with the yolks of 2 hard-boiled eggs until smooth.

  2. Gradually add 3 tablespoons of melted butter or salad oil, 1 tablespoon of mustard, and a little salt and pepper. Beat the mixture well.

  3. Add vinegar to taste.

Assemble and serve

  1. Cover the salmon thickly with part of the dressing.

  2. Tear the crisp inside leaves of lettuce into small pieces. Mix the lettuce pieces with the remaining dressing.

  3. Pour the mixture over the salmon.

  4. Garnish with crisp lettuce leaves.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Mustard + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,356 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Clove + lettucetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together486 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  5. Clove + mustardtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,829 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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 salad, providing the flaky protein base.
Egg yolks
Emulsify the butter or oil into the dressing, giving it a smooth, thick body.
Butter or salad oil
Adds richness and fat, helping the dressing stay smooth and coat the salmon.
Mustard
Adds sharpness and helps stabilise the emulsion of the dressing.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and firms the surface of the salmon.
Lettuce
Adds crisp texture and a fresh, cool contrast to the rich salmon.

The step that matters

Adding the fat to the yolks. Oil or melted butter must be added slowly while beating, so the yolks can emulsify it. Adding it too fast can split the dressing into greasy liquid and leave it thin rather than smooth and thick.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Dillfits better
  4. Clovethe original

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