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Salmon and Mayonnaise Sauce

Salmon served with a homemade mayonnaise sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 and Mayonnaise Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the salmon

  1. Boil the salmon for about 20 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Let it cool, then cover with mayonnaise sauce.

  2. Decorate with parsley and salad around the dish.

Make the mayonnaise

  1. For the mayonnaise, break the yolks into a bowl.

  2. Add pepper and coarse sea salt, then slowly add the oil drop by drop until thick like creamed butter.

  3. Gradually mix in the vinegar.

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

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

  2. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Mustard + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,588 recipes

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

  4. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  5. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Salmon
Firm, flaky protein that sets and becomes opaque as it cooks.
Egg yolks
Act as the emulsifier that holds the oil and vinegar together as a thick sauce.
Salad oil
Supplies the fat that gives the mayonnaise its rich, creamy body.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor and helps stabilize the emulsion.
Made mustard
Adds sharpness and helps the yolks and oil bind into a stable emulsion.

The step that matters

Add the oil slowly to the yolks. Oil must be added drop by drop at first so the yolk lecithin can surround the droplets and form a stable emulsion. Adding it too fast can cause the sauce to split and stay runny.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Cucumberfits about as well
  4. Mustardthe original

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