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Salad

Mayonnaise of Salmon

A mayonnaise-style sauce made with salmon, mustard, salt, vinegar, salad oil, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,067 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Mayonnaise of Salmon

Ingredients

Directions

Poach the salmon

  1. Plunge the salmon into boiling salted water until cooked.

  2. Remove the skin and let the fish cool.

Make the mayonnaise

  1. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks with mustard, salt, and vinegar.

  2. Slowly add the salad oil drop by drop while stirring quickly until fully combined.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Salmon + eggtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,485 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Salmon + mustardtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together839 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Salmon + vinegartop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Mustard + eggtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,210 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Emulsify the oil and water into a thick, smooth sauce.
Salad oil
Provides the fat that gives the mayonnaise its rich body and texture.
Prepared mustard
Helps stabilise the emulsion so the sauce holds together.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that balances the richness of the oil and yolks.

The step that matters

Adding the oil. If the oil goes in too quickly or the mixture is not stirred fast enough, the emulsion breaks and the sauce turns oily and runny. Adding oil slowly while whisking lets tiny droplets disperse evenly and be held by the egg yolk proteins.

Swap the mustard

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

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

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