Name: Salmon Mayonnaise
Ingredients: ciseled lettuce; cold cooked salmon; mayonnaise sauce; anchovy fillets; capers; stoned olives; hard-boiled eggs; small hearts of lettuce

Why it works: Lettuce and capers match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 372 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Salmon Mayonnaise

Ingredients

Directions

Garnish the bottom of a salad bowl with seasoned chiseled lettuce.
Cover with cold, cooked, and flaked salmon, removing all skin and bones.
Coat with mayonnaise sauce.
Decorate with anchovy fillets, capers, stoned olives, small slices or quarters of hard-boiled eggs, and small hearts of lettuce.

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.

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 + caperstop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together372 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Sauce + anchovytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,057 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Capers + olivetop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,688 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Lettuce + olivetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,580 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Anchovy + caperstop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together473 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cold cooked salmon: Forms the main protein layer and provides the bulk of the salad.
Mayonnaise sauce: Adds richness and moisture, binding the salad together with a creamy texture.
Hard-boiled eggs: Adds a firm, mild texture and body to the salad.
Ciseled lettuce: Provides a crisp, fresh base that holds the salad above the dressing.

Swap the lettuce

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, sauce, anchovy, capers, olive, egg):

Shallotfits better
Chivefits better
Welsh onionfits about as well
Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, sauce, anchovy, capers, olive, 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.