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Salmon Salad

A chilled salmon salad with hard‑boiled egg yolks, mustard dressing, and lettuce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Salmon Salad

Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Salmon Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the salmon

  1. Place the can of salmon in a kettle of boiling water and boil for 20 minutes.

  2. Remove the salmon from the can and place it in a deep dish.

  3. Pour off the juice or oil.

  4. Add a few cloves.

  5. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.

  6. Cover the salmon with cold vinegar and let it stand for a day.

  7. After a day, remove the salmon from the vinegar and place it on a platter.

Make the dressing

  1. In a bowl, beat the raw egg yolks and the mashed hard-boiled yolks together.

  2. Gradually add the mustard, melted butter or salad oil, salt, pepper, and vinegar to taste.

  3. Beat the mixture well.

  4. Add lemon juice and brown sugar if desired.

Assemble and serve

  1. Spread some of the dressing thickly over the salmon.

  2. Tear the lettuce leaves into small pieces.

  3. Mix with the remaining dressing.

  4. Pour over the salmon.

  5. Garnish with larger pieces of lettuce around the salmon.

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

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

  2. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Clove + mustardtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,829 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  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

Salmon
Forms the body of the salad, and boiling and vinegar soaking firm and season it.
Raw egg yolks
Emulsify with the butter or oil, giving the dressing a thick, creamy texture.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Mash into the dressing, adding richness and body.
Mustard
Adds sharp flavor and helps stabilize the emulsified dressing.
Melted butter or salad oil
Adds fat that gives the dressing richness and smooth texture.
Cold vinegar
Adds acidity that seasons and firms the salmon during its day of soaking.

The step that matters

Beating the dressing. Adding the butter or oil gradually while beating lets the yolks and mustard emulsify into a smooth, thick dressing. Adding it all at once can cause it to separate and stay oily.

Swap the lemon

The recipe marks lemon as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, clove, pepper, vinegar, egg, mustard, butter):

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Avocadofits about as well
  3. Limefits less well
  4. Cherryfits less well

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