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Salmon Salad, with Jelly

A chilled salmon salad served with aspic jelly and garnished with gherkins, egg whites, anchovy fillets, and capers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Anchovy and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,057 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Salmon Salad, with Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the salmon

  1. Trim away the bones and skin from the salmon and cut the flesh into squares.

  2. Place the salmon squares in a dish. Season the salmon squares.

  3. Baste the salmon squares with oil and vinegar.

Set the mold

  1. Prepare a plain border mold. Chill the mold in ice.

  2. Decorate the sides and bottom of the mold with gherkins, egg whites, anchovy fillets, and capers.

  3. Dip the garnishes in half-set aspic jelly.

  4. Gradually fill the mold with cold jelly.

Assemble and serve

  1. Twenty minutes before serving, turn the mold onto a cold dish.

  2. Half fill the space inside the border with chopped aspic jelly.

  3. Layer the salmon squares on top, alternating with egg mayonnaise sauce.

  4. Serve with mayonnaise sauce in a sauceboat.

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. Anchovy + saucetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Anchovy + caperstop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together473 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  3. Salmon + anchovytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together535 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Capers + saucetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together678 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Egg + anchovytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,330 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

Cold boiled salmon
Forms the main body of the salad, providing the flaky, tender protein centre of the dish.
Aspic jelly
Sets into a clear gelatin that holds the garnishes in place and gives the mold its firm shape.
Egg mayonnaise sauce
Adds richness and moisture, coating the salmon and binding the layers together.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the salmon and cuts its richness.

The step that matters

Dip the garnishes in half-set aspic jelly. If the aspic is too liquid, garnishes slide or sink; if fully set, it will not adhere. Half-set jelly is thick enough to hold each piece in place on the mold wall.

“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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