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Salad

Salmon Mayonnaise

Salmon mayonnaise is a salad with flaked salmon, lettuce, cucumber, and a mayonnaise‑like sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Lettuce and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,356 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Salmon Mayonnaise

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Make the sauce first. Pound the yolks of the hard-boiled eggs until smooth, then add the raw yolks and mix well.

  2. Gradually add the salad oil while stirring continuously.

  3. Add the salt, mustard, sugar, and then the cream, mixing well.

  4. Finally, add the vinegar drop by drop, continuing to stir until fully combined.

Prepare the salad

  1. Wash and dry the lettuce, then flake the salmon, removing bones and skin.

  2. Tear the lettuce into small pieces if the leaves are large.

Assemble and serve

  1. Layer the lettuce and salmon in a round dish, pouring some sauce between each layer.

  2. Garnish with slices of cucumber.

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. Lettuce + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,356 recipes

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

  2. Lettuce + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together425 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Tarragon + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together901 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Tarragon + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,547 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 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

Raw egg yolks
Emulsify the oil and cream into a thick, smooth sauce.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Add body and richness to the sauce, helping it stay smooth.
Salad oil
Provides fat that forms the body of the mayonnaise when added slowly.
Cream
Adds moisture and softness, giving the sauce a milder, looser texture.
Tarragon vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and balances the richness of the oil.
Cold salmon
Provides the main protein, flaked into the layers of the dish.

The step that matters

Adding the oil gradually. Oil must be added slowly while stirring so it disperses into tiny droplets held by the egg yolk emulsifiers. Adding it too fast can cause the sauce to split and separate.

Swap the lettuce

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, egg, cream, tarragon, vinegar, mustard, sugar):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Shallotfits about as well
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, egg, cream, tarragon, vinegar, mustard, sugar. 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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