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Salmon Mayonnaise

A whole salmon coated with mayonnaise mixed with liquid aspic jelly and garnished with various decorations.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and capers match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,550 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Salmon Mayonnaise

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the salmon according to the directions for boiling fish.

  2. Cool the salmon completely.

Coat and decorate

  1. Coat the cooled salmon with mayonnaise mixed with liquid aspic jelly in a ratio of ½ cup jelly to 2 cups mayonnaise.

  2. Decorate the salmon with suitable garnishes such as lobster coral, truffle, parsley, cucumber, olives, anchovies, capers, Indian pickles, and gherkins.

  3. Finish the dish with a border of chopped aspic.

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. Parsley + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,550 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Cucumber + caperstop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together303 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Olive + caperstop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,688 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Parsley + olivetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,649 recipes

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

  5. Cucumber + olivetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

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

What each ingredient does

Salmon
Forms the main body of the dish and provides its flaky, cooked texture.
Mayonnaise
Adds fat and creaminess, giving the coating a smooth, rich texture.
Liquid aspic jelly
Sets into a firm, glossy layer that holds the coating and garnishes in place.

The step that matters

Cool the salmon completely before coating. Warm fish softens the mayonnaise and melts the aspic, so the coating slides off, turns greasy, and fails to set smoothly. A fully cooled surface lets the mixture cling and firm up evenly.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, lobster, truffle, cucumber, olive, capers):

  1. Tarragonfits about as well
  2. Garlicfits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Turmericfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, lobster, truffle, cucumber, olive, capers. 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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