Name: Salmon Salad
Ingredients: 2 cans or 3 lbs fresh boiled salmon; 1 head lettuce; 2 hard boiled eggs; 12 olives, finely chopped; 1 tablespoon capers; ½ teaspoon coarse sea salt; ½ teaspoon cayenne pepper; 1 cup mayonnaise; ½ cup celery, finely chopped

Why it works: Lettuce and capers 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

In a bowl, mix the salmon with olives, celery, hard boiled eggs, salt, cayenne pepper, and capers.
Serve the mixture on lettuce leaves and top with mayonnaise.

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.

Lettuce + caperstop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together372 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Olive + caperstop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,688 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Lettuce + celerytop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,033 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together16,012 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Lettuce + olivetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,580 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Salmon: Forms the bulk of the salad and supplies its main flesh and flavour.
Hard boiled eggs: Add body and a soft, creamy texture to the mixture.
Mayonnaise: Adds fat and moisture, binding the salad and giving it richness.
Capers: Add a sharp, briny acidity that cuts through the richness of the mayonnaise.
Olives: Contribute salty, briny flavour and a little firmness to the mixture.

Swap the celery

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

Tarragonfits better
Parsleyfits better
Dillfits better
Celerythe original

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