Name: Salmon Salad
Ingredients: 1 can of salmon, skin and bones removed; 6 hard boiled egg yolks; 1 cup of butter; 1 tablespoon of prepared mustard; pepper to taste; coarse sea salt to taste; lettuce leaves for serving

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

Prepare

Remove the skin and bones from the salmon and break it into small pieces.

Make the salad

In a bowl, mash the egg yolks and butter together.
Add the salmon, pepper, salt, and mustard to the egg mixture and combine well.
Serve the mixture 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.

Mustard + lettucetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,356 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15,430 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Pepper + lettucetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,037 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Salmon + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,481 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
Salmon + eggtop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,485 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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 flaky texture of the salad.
Egg yolks: Mashed with butter to make a rich, creamy base that binds the salmon.
Butter: Adds richness and a smooth, creamy texture when mashed with the yolks.
Prepared mustard: Adds sharp, tangy flavor that balances the richness of the butter and yolks.

Swap the lettuce

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

Chivefits better
Horseradishfits better
Asparagusfits better
Lettucethe original

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