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Salmon Salad

A salad made with canned salmon, cabbage, celery extract, and a mustard‑vinegar dressing.

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 cabbage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,645 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Salmon Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the salmon

  1. Place the can of salmon in a kettle of boiling water and cook for 15 minutes.

  2. Open the can, pour off the oil, and spread the salmon on a platter to cool.

Make the dressing

  1. In a saucepan, combine salt, mustard, white pepper, sugar, cream or milk, vinegar, and egg or egg yolks.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil.

Assemble and serve

  1. Mix the cooled salmon with a little more than an equal quantity of chopped cabbage.

  2. Pour 1 teaspoon or more of celery extract over the cabbage.

  3. Let it stand for a while.

  4. Mix everything together for 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.

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 + cabbagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,645 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Vinegar + cabbagetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 recipes

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

  5. Salmon + creamtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,401 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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 flesh of the salad, cooked first so it can be flaked and cooled.
Egg or egg yolks
Thickens the cooked dressing as it heats, giving it a creamy, binding texture.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that balances the sugar and richness of the dressing.
Sugar
Sweetens the dressing and offsets the acidity of the vinegar.
Cream or milk
Adds moisture and richness, softening the sharpness of the dressing.
Chopped cabbage
Adds crunch and bulk, giving the salad its fresh, crisp texture.

The step that matters

Bring the dressing mixture to a boil. Egg proteins thicken as they heat, but if the mixture overheats or boils too hard, the eggs can scramble and curdle, leaving the dressing lumpy instead of smooth.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Dillfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, mustard, sugar, cream, vinegar, egg, cabbage. 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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