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Salmon Salad

A salad of flaked salmon and diced celery dressed with a lemony mustard sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Salmon Salad

Why it works: Celery and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Salmon Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the salmon

  1. Remove bones and fatty skin from the salmon and flake it with a fork.

  2. Dice the celery finely and mix it with the salmon.

  3. Season the mixture with coarse sea salt, cayenne pepper, black pepper, and paprika.

Make the dressing

  1. In a saucepan, combine egg yolks, ½ teaspoon salt, mustard, sugar, lemon juice, and butter or oil.

  2. Cook the dressing over low heat until thick, stirring constantly.

  3. Remove from heat and stir in the beaten 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. Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Celery + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  5. Pepper + mustardtop 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

Pink salmon
Provides the main body and flavor of the salad.
Egg yolks
Emulsify and thicken the dressing as they cook gently.
Egg whites
Add lightness and body to the dressing when folded in beaten.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances richness.
Celery
Adds crunch and moisture to the salad.
Sugar
Balances the acidity of the lemon and mustard in the dressing.

The step that matters

Cook the dressing over low heat until thick, stirring constantly. Egg yolks thicken when gently heated but can scramble if the heat is too high or stirring stops. Constant stirring over low heat keeps the dressing smooth and evenly thickened.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pink salmon, celery, pepper, egg, sugar, lemon, butter):

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Mustardthe original
  3. Spinachfits about as well
  4. Cucumberfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against pink salmon, celery, pepper, egg, sugar, lemon, 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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