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Salad

Mayonnaise of Salmon

A cold salmon salad with mayonnaise, lettuce, cucumber, gherkins, anchovies, capers, aspic jelly, and hard‑boiled eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lettuce and capers match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 372 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Mayonnaise of Salmon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash and dry the lettuce well, reserving the best parts for garnishing and tearing up the rest.

  2. Slice the cucumber very finely and cut it into about eight pieces.

  3. Chop some of the aspic jelly and cut the rest into fancy blocks.

  4. Chop the anchovies.

Assemble and garnish

  1. On a dish, layer some lettuce, then some anchovies, followed by more lettuce.

  2. Place the salmon, divided into nice pieces, on top.

  3. Pour mayonnaise sauce over the salmon.

  4. Decorate with capers and gherkins cut into fancy shapes.

  5. Arrange cucumber around the dish.

  6. Garnish with aspic jelly and slices of hard-boiled eggs.

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.

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. Lettuce + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together372 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Lettuce + cucumbertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,409 recipes

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

  3. Cucumber + caperstop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together303 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Sauce + caperstop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together678 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Salmon + cucumbertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together513 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Salmon
Provides the main protein and flaky texture as the centrepiece of the salad.
Mayonnaise sauce
Adds richness and moisture, coating the salmon and lettuce with fat.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add creamy richness and a soft, mild texture to the salad.
Aspic jelly
Sets into a savoury gel that adds a glossy finish and clean texture.
Anchovies
Contribute a salty, savoury depth that seasons the lettuce base.
Lettuce
Forms the crisp, fresh base that carries the other ingredients.

The step that matters

Chop the aspic jelly and set the blocks. Aspic is a gelatin-based jelly that must be kept cool and firm; if it warms it softens and loses its shape, so the decorative blocks may slump on the plate.

Swap the lettuce

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, egg, sauce, cucumber, capers):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Horseradishfits better
  4. Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, egg, sauce, cucumber, capers. 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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