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Salad

Salmon Salad

A salad made with canned salmon, lettuce, and dressing, seasoned with pepper, sea salt, cloves, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Salmon Salad

Why it works: Pepper and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Salmon Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the salmon

  1. Boil the canned salmon in water for 15 minutes.

  2. Remove the salmon from the can and drain the oil.

  3. Sprinkle the salmon with pepper, coarse sea salt, and whole cloves.

  4. Cover the salmon with vinegar and let it sit for 24 hours.

Assemble and serve

  1. Transfer the salmon to a salad dish and add finely chopped lettuce.

  2. Pour salad dressing over the top, garnish with lettuce leaves, and serve.

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. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Clove + lettucetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together486 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  3. Pepper + lettucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,037 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Vinegar + lettucetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,370 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 protein and flaky texture of the salad.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens flavor and firms the surface of the fish as it sits.
Lettuce
Supplies crisp texture and fresh bulk to the salad.
Salad dressing
Adds moisture, fat, and flavor that coats the salmon and lettuce.

The step that matters

Cover the salmon with vinegar and let it sit for 24 hours. Vinegar slowly acidifies and firms the fish proteins over long resting. Too short a rest leaves the flesh soft and the flavor sharp on the surface, while the long rest is what changes the texture.

Swap the clove

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, pepper, vinegar, 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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