Name: Salmon Salad
Ingredients: 1 can salmon; ½ cup peas; ½ small onion; 2 hard boiled eggs; 2 stalks celery; mayonnaise dressing

Why it works: Onion and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,518 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Salmon Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Remove skin and bones from the salmon and break it into pieces.
Chop the onion, hard boiled eggs, and celery.

Assemble and serve

Combine the chopped onion, eggs, celery, and salmon in a bowl.
Cook the peas until tender, then cool and add to the mixture.
Serve with 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.

Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,518 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Salmon + peastop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together375 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Peas + celerytop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,832 recipes

Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).
Peas + oniontop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,460 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Salmon + eggtop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,485 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).