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Salmon Salad

A salad of canned salmon, celery, mustard dressing, and lettuce garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Salmon Salad

Why it works: Mustard and lettuce 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

  1. In a bowl, combine the salmon and chopped celery.

  2. In a separate bowl, mix the mustard, vinegar, egg yolks, salt, and cayenne pepper.

  3. Pour the dressing over the salmon and celery mixture and mix well.

  4. Serve in a salad dish, garnished with 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.

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. Mustard + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,356 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Celery + lettucetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,033 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  4. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  5. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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.
Celery
Adds crisp texture and a fresh crunch to the salad.
Egg yolks
Emulsify with the mustard and vinegar to give the dressing a creamy body.
Mustard
Adds sharp flavour and helps hold the dressing together as an emulsion.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the salmon and balances the rich yolks.

The step that matters

Mixing the dressing into the salmon and celery. Egg yolks and mustard form an emulsion that can break if overworked or added too quickly. Mixing gently until just combined keeps the dressing creamy and evenly coating the salmon and celery.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Dillfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, mustard, vinegar, egg, pepper, lettuce. 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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