Name: Salad
Ingredients: 1 can salmon; 4 sour pickles, chopped fine; 3 hard boiled eggs; 1 teaspoon mustard; 1 tablespoon sugar; 1 tablespoon butter; 2 tablespoons cream or milk; 6 tablespoons vinegar; 1 raw egg

Why it works: Mustard and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,067 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Make the salad

In a bowl, combine the salmon, chopped pickles, and chopped hard-boiled eggs.
Add mustard, sugar, butter, cream or milk, and vinegar to the mixture and mix well until all ingredients are combined.
Gently fold in the raw egg.

Serve

Serve chilled.

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.

Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together14,067 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Salmon + creamtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,401 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,806 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Salmon: Provides the main flaked protein and the fish flavour.
Hard boiled eggs: Add body and richness to the salad.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour.
Butter: Adds fat for a richer, softer texture.
Sugar: Balances the sharpness of the vinegar and pickles.
Mustard: Adds a sharp, pungent flavour.

Swap the mustard

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

Cucumberfits about as well
Chivefits about as well
Asparagusfits about as well
Mustardthe original

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