Name: Salmon Salad
Ingredients: 1 can of salmon; ½ head of lettuce or cabbage; 3 hard boiled eggs; 12 buttered crackers, crushed; ¼ teaspoon salt; ¼ teaspoon pepper; 2 tablespoons prepared mustard; ½ cup vinegar; 2 tablespoons melted butter

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

Chop the whites of the hard-boiled eggs, lettuce, and salmon together.
In a bowl, mix the crushed crackers, salt, pepper, mustard, vinegar, and melted butter to create the dressing.
Pour the dressing over the chopped mixture and combine well.

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 + mustardtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,356 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together14,067 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15,430 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Lettuce + peppertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,037 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Pepper + vinegartop 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: Provides the main body and flavor of the salad.
Eggs: Add richness and body to the chopped mixture.
Crushed buttered crackers: Absorb the dressing and add texture and savory flavor.
Mustard: Adds sharpness that balances the richness of the salmon and butter.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that brightens the salad and cuts through the richness.

Swap the lettuce

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

Horseradishfits better
Chivefits better
Cucumberfits better
Lettucethe original

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