Skip to main content
Main

Shrimp or Salmon Salad

A chilled shrimp salad with celery, vinegar dressing, and egg, served in hollowed vegetables or on lettuce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Celery and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Shrimp or Salmon Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the shrimp

  1. In a deep dish, combine shrimps, salt, pepper, and chopped celery.

Make the dressing

  1. In a saucepan, mix vinegar and water.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  3. In a small bowl, mix cornstarch with cold vinegar.

  4. Add the cornstarch mixture to the boiling vinegar-water mixture.

  5. Stir in mustard, salt, and white pepper.

  6. Boil well and remove from heat.

  7. Quickly stir in the beaten egg until well combined.

  8. Pour the dressing over the shrimp mixture and mix well.

Serve

  1. Serve in hollowed tomatoes, green peppers, cucumbers, or on a bed of lettuce.

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. Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  3. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Shrimps
Provide the main protein and body of the salad.
Cornstarch
Thickens the vinegar mixture into a smooth, stable dressing.
Egg
Adds richness and helps bind and thicken the dressing as it cooks.
Vinegar
Supplies acidity that gives the dressing its sharp, tangy flavor.
Mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavor that balances the acidity of the vinegar.

The step that matters

Quickly stir in the beaten egg. Adding egg to very hot liquid can scramble it into lumps. Stirring it in quickly and off the heat, after the cornstarch has thickened the mixture, keeps the dressing smooth and evenly thickened.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (shrimp, pepper, celery, vinegar, mustard, egg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against shrimp, pepper, celery, vinegar, mustard, egg. 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.

More shrimp salad recipes

Avocado 5 See all 90 →

You might also like

Cream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesCelery StewCelery Stew25 recipesCelery CroquettesCelery Croquettes16 recipesCelery Cream SoupCelery Cream Soup15 recipes