Name: Salmon Salad
Ingredients: 1 can salmon; 3 or 4 hard-boiled eggs; 2 small boiled potatoes; a little lettuce or cabbage; salt; pepper; vinegar; a little salad oil

Why it works: Potato and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 322 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Salmon Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Chop the salmon, hard-boiled eggs, boiled potatoes, and lettuce or cabbage finely.
Season with salt, pepper, vinegar, and salad oil.
Serve on lettuce leaves.

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.

Potato + lettucetop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together322 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,305 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Lettuce + peppertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,037 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,814 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Lettuce + vinegartop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,370 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Salmon: Provides the main protein and flaky body of the salad.
Hard-boiled eggs: Add richness and a firm, creamy texture when chopped through the salad.
Boiled potatoes: Add bulk and soft texture that holds the chopped pieces together.
Salad oil: Adds fat and moisture, carrying seasoning and softening the sharp vinegar.

Swap the potato

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

Cucumberfits better
Mustardfits better
Chivefits better
Potatothe original

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