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Salad

Salmon Salad

A chilled salad of canned salmon, hard‑boiled eggs, lettuce or celery, and a dressing of olive oil or milk, vinegar, sugar, mustard, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Salmon Salad

Why it works: Lettuce and mustard 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

  1. Drain the oil from the canned salmon and mince the meat finely.

  2. Chop the lettuce or celery and set aside.

  3. Boil the eggs hard, then place them in cold water for a few minutes.

  4. Shell the eggs, separate the whites and yolks, and set the whites aside.

Make the dressing and combine

  1. Mash the yolks smooth with olive oil or milk/cream.

  2. Add vinegar, sugar, salt, mustard, and pepper to the yolk mixture.

  3. Toss the mixture lightly with the minced salmon using a silver fork.

Garnish

  1. Garnish with celery leaves, parsley, and sliced egg whites.

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.

  1. Lettuce + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,356 recipes

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

  2. Lettuce + olivetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Olive + mustardtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

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 flavor of the salad.
Egg yolks
Mashed smooth, they form the creamy base that binds the salad.
Olive oil or milk/cream
Adds richness and moisture, smoothing the mashed yolks into a spreadable dressing.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the richness of the yolks.
Mustard
Adds sharp flavor and helps emulsify the yolk dressing.

The step that matters

Mash the yolks smooth before adding the other dressing ingredients. Lumps of yolk will not blend evenly into the dressing, so the salad ends up patchy. Mashing the yolks with the oil or milk first gives a smooth, uniform base that the vinegar and mustard can mix into.

Swap the lettuce

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

  1. Cucumberfits better
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Horseradishfits about as well
  4. Lettucethe original

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

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