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Salad

Asparagus and Salmon Salad

A chilled salad of boiled asparagus and canned salmon mixed with olive oil, lemon juice, salt, Tabasco, served with mayonnaise and lemon garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Asparagus and lemon work together. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 704 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Asparagus and Salmon Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare and boil the asparagus, then chill in the refrigerator until cold.

  2. Open the can of salmon, drain the juice, and break the salmon into small pieces.

Assemble and serve

  1. In a salad bowl, mix the salmon with olive oil, lemon juice, salt, and Tabasco sauce.

  2. Cut the asparagus into 1-inch pieces and lay them on top of the salmon mixture.

  3. Serve with mayonnaise and garnish the plate with triangular slices of lemon.

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.

  1. Asparagus + lemontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together704 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Asparagus + olivetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,096 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans,trans-2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  3. Olive + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,922 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Asparagus + salmontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together141 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Salmon + olivetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,942 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans,trans-2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Asparagus
Provides the main vegetable body and crisp-tender texture after boiling and chilling.
Salmon
Supplies the main protein and flaky texture of the salad.
Olive oil
Adds fat and moisture, carrying flavour through the salmon mixture.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the salmon and oil.
Mayonnaise
Adds creaminess and richness when served alongside the salad.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Limefits less well
  4. Cherryfits less well

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