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Salad

Salmon Salad

A chilled salmon salad with French dressing, mayonnaise, capers, olives, gherkin pickles, served on lettuce.

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

Why it works: Capers and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 372 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Salmon Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the salmon

  1. Dice the salmon.

  2. Season the salmon with French dressing.

  3. Set the salmon on ice until ready to serve.

  4. Add more French dressing to the salmon to make it very moist.

Make the dressing and serve

  1. In a bowl, combine the mayonnaise dressing, capers, olives, and gherkin pickles.

  2. Mix half of the mayonnaise mixture with the salmon until well combined.

  3. Serve the salmon on lettuce leaves and cover with the remaining mayonnaise dressing.

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. Capers + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together372 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Capers + olivetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,688 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Olive + lettucetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,580 recipes

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

  4. Salmon + caperstop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together458 recipes

    Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).

  5. Salmon + olivetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,942 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans,trans-2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Salmon
Forms the main body of the salad and provides its flesh-based texture and flavour.
Mayonnaise dressing
Adds fat and creaminess, binding the salmon and keeping it moist.
French dressing
Seasons the salmon and adds moisture and acidity.
Capers
Add sharp, salty acidity that brightens the rich mayonnaise.
Olives
Add salty, briny flavour and a firm bite against the soft salmon.
Gherkin pickles
Add tart acidity and crunch that contrast with the creamy dressing.

The step that matters

Keeping the salmon cold and moist. Salmon is a delicate, fatty fish that softens and can become watery when warm. Chilling it on ice firms the flesh and keeps the dressing from thinning, so the salad stays cool and holds its texture until served.

Swap the lettuce

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, capers, olive):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Welsh onionfits better
  4. Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, capers, olive. 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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