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Salmon Salad

A salad of flaked salmon with celery, mayonnaise, lettuce, hard boiled eggs, olives, and pimentos.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Salmon Salad

Why it works: Lemon and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,467 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Salmon Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the salmon

  1. Drain the salmon, remove the bone and skin, and flake it into pieces.

  2. Sprinkle the salmon with lemon juice and let it chill thoroughly.

Make the salad

  1. Add the diced celery and enough mayonnaise dressing to moisten.

  2. Serve the mixture on lettuce leaves and garnish with hard boiled eggs, olives, and chopped pimentos.

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. Lemon + celerytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Celery + lettucetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,033 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  3. Lettuce + olivetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,580 recipes

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

  4. Lemon + olivetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,922 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Lemon + lettucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,559 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Salmon
Provides the main body and flavour of the salad.
Mayonnaise dressing
Adds moisture and richness so the flaked salmon holds together.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the fish and seasons it before serving.
Celery
Adds a crisp, fresh texture that contrasts with the soft fish.

The step that matters

Chilling the salmon with lemon juice. Acid from the lemon firms and seasons the flaked fish while it chills, so it should rest long enough to absorb the flavour and cool fully before the dressing is added.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, lemon, lettuce, egg, olive):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, lemon, lettuce, egg, olive. 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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