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Salmon Salad

Salmon salad with a creamy dressing of vinegar, butter, mustard, sugar, and cream, garnished with lettuce and hard-boiled eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Salmon Salad

Why it works: Lettuce and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,356 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Salmon Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Drain the salmon and place it on a serving dish, garnished with lettuce.

  2. In a bowl, mix vinegar, butter, mustard, pepper, salt, sugar, and chopped hard-boiled eggs.

Make the dressing

  1. Chill the mixture, then stir in the cream.

  2. Pour the dressing over the salmon.

  3. Optionally, add chopped lettuce or celery to the salmon.

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. Lettuce + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,356 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  4. Lettuce + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,037 recipes

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

  5. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

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 dish and provides the flesh the dressing coats.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add richness and body to the dressing as they are mashed and mixed in.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour of the dressing.
Butter
Adds fat that gives the dressing a smooth, rich mouthfeel.
Cream
Thickens and softens the dressing, giving it a creamy texture.

The step that matters

Chill the mixture before adding the cream. Chilling lets the egg and butter mixture firm up slightly so the cream stirs in smoothly instead of thinning or separating the dressing.

Swap the lettuce

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

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Cucumberfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, vinegar, butter, mustard, pepper, sugar, egg. 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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