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Salad

Salmon Salad

A chilled salad of canned salmon, pickles, eggs, and crackers dressed with a vinegar‑mustard sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Salmon Salad

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Salmon Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mix the salmon, pickles, eggs, and rolled crackers together in a bowl.

Make the dressing

  1. In a saucepan, combine vinegar, beaten egg, mustard, milk, and butter.

  2. Cook over low heat until the mixture is a smooth sauce.

  3. Allow the sauce to cool, then pour it over the salmon mixture and mix well.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Salmon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,481 recipes

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

  4. Salmon + eggtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,485 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Salmon + milktop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,577 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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 flavour of the salad.
Hard boiled eggs
Add body and a soft, creamy texture to the salad.
Beaten egg
Thickens the sauce as it cooks and helps it set smooth.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour of the sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and fat for a smooth, silky sauce.

The step that matters

Cook the sauce over low heat. Beaten egg can scramble if heated too fast. Gentle, low heat lets the egg thicken the sauce smoothly without curdling.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Cucumberfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Mustardthe original

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