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Salad

Salmon Salad

A salad of canned salmon, onions, eggs, and a mustard‑vinegar dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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

  1. In a bowl, combine the salmon, chopped onions, salt, pepper, and hard boiled eggs.

  2. In a separate bowl, beat the egg and mix in the cold water, mustard, and sugar.

  3. Stir the egg mixture into the boiling vinegar.

  4. Pour the vinegar mixture over the salmon mixture and mix well.

  5. Serve the salad on 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. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  3. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Onion + lettucetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,562 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

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 and provides its flavor and protein.
Eggs
Add richness and body, and the beaten egg thickens the vinegar dressing as it cooks.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the salad and balances the sweetness of the sugar.
Onions
Add sharp, aromatic flavor and crunch to the salmon mixture.

The step that matters

Stir the egg mixture into the boiling vinegar. Adding the egg to very hot liquid can scramble it into lumps. Stirring steadily while pouring it in helps the egg blend smoothly and thicken the dressing evenly.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Cucumberfits better
  2. Horseradishfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, pepper, egg, mustard, sugar, vinegar, 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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