Skip to main content
Salad

Salmon Salad

A salad of cold steamed salmon with seasonings, lettuce, mayonnaise, and hard boiled eggs.

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

Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Salmon Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the cold steamed salmon into 2‑inch pieces.

  2. Place the salmon in a dish and season with salt, pepper, oil, vinegar, chopped parsley, and chopped onion.

  3. Cover and let it stand for 2 to 3 hours.

Serve

  1. Serve the salmon on lettuce leaves and pour mayonnaise sauce over it.

  2. Garnish with sliced hard boiled eggs.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + lettucetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,483 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  3. Onion + lettucetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,562 recipes

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

  4. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Pepper + lettucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,037 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cold steamed salmon
Forms the main body of the salad, providing protein and flaky texture.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and begins to firm the fish surface as it stands.
Mayonnaise sauce
Adds fat and creaminess, giving the salad moisture and a rich mouthfeel.
Hard boiled eggs
Add soft, firm texture and a mild richness as a garnish.
1 small onion
Contributes sharp aroma and pungency that mellows during the standing time.

The step that matters

Let it stand for 2 to 3 hours. The acid in the vinegar slowly seasons the fish and firms its surface, so the time must be respected. Too short a rest leaves the flavour sharp and uneven throughout the pieces.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, pepper, vinegar, parsley, lettuce, sauce, egg):

  1. Cucumberfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, pepper, vinegar, parsley, lettuce, sauce, 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.

More salmon salad recipes

Dressing 4Jellied 3 See all 153 →

You might also like

Chicken SaladChicken Salad623 recipesSalad DressingSalad Dressing491 recipesTomato SaladTomato Salad179 recipesCold SlawCold Slaw160 recipes