Name: Salmon Salad
Ingredients: 1 can best red salmon; 2 hard boiled eggs, chopped; ½ cup celery, chopped fine; Salt to taste; 1 cup chopped cabbage; Salad dressing; Chopped nuts; Lettuce leaves

Why it works: Cabbage and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 622 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Salmon Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Make the salad

In a bowl, combine the salmon, chopped eggs, celery, and cabbage.
Season with salt to taste.

Serve

Serve the mixture on a lettuce leaf.
Top with salad dressing and chopped nuts.

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.

Cabbage + lettucetop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together622 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Celery + lettucetop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,033 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Celery + cabbagetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,840 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Nuts + lettucetop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together174 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).
Salmon + eggtop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,485 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Red salmon: Provides the main protein and body of the salad.
Hard boiled eggs: Add richness and a soft, creamy texture that binds the mixture.
Celery: Adds crisp texture and a fresh, mild crunch.
Cabbage: Adds crunch and bulk to the salad.

Swap the nuts

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

Sesamefits better
Beansfits better
Chestnutfits better
Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, egg, celery, cabbage, lettuce. 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.