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Salad

Salmon Salad

A salad of chopped lettuce topped with a creamy salmon mixture and hard‑boiled eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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

Make the dressing

  1. Combine egg yolks, vinegar, butter, sugar, red pepper, salt, and mustard in a saucepan.

  2. Heat the mixture over medium heat, stirring until it boils.

  3. Remove the saucepan from heat.

  4. Stir in the cream.

Add the eggs and salmon

  1. Chop two hard-boiled eggs.

  2. Add the chopped eggs to the salmon.

  3. Reserve one hard-boiled egg for garnish.

Serve

  1. Serve the salmon mixture over the chopped lettuce.

  2. Garnish with the reserved egg.

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. Pepper + mustardtop 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the dressing as they warm and bind it into a smooth sauce.
Vinegar
Adds sharpness that balances the richness of the dressing.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, glossy texture to the dressing.
Cream
Adds richness and softens the sharpness of the vinegar.
Salmon
Provides the main protein and flavor of the salad.
Lettuce
Provides a cool, crisp base for the salmon mixture.

The step that matters

Heating the dressing. Stirring constantly over medium heat keeps the egg yolks from scrambling. Yolks thicken as they warm, but if they overheat they curdle, so the pan should come off the heat as soon as the mixture boils.

Swap the lettuce

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

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

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