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Moulded Salmon

A chilled salmon salad set in a mold with a mustard-salt dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Moulded Salmon

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. Make a salad dressing with the first six ingredients.

  2. Soften the gelatine in cold water.

  3. Dissolve it in the hot dressing while stirring constantly, then strain the mixture.

Set and serve

  1. Add the salmon to the dressing and pour it into a moistened mold.

  2. Chill the mold until set, then unmold onto a bed of lettuce.

  3. Garnish with parsley and hard-cooked eggs or olives, and serve with additional salad dressing.

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. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Egg + salmontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,485 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Milk + salmontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,577 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Gelatine
Sets the dressing and salmon into a firm, sliceable mold when chilled.
Eggs
Add richness and help bind the dressing into a smooth, thick emulsion.
Mustard
Emulsifies the dressing and adds sharp, savory flavor.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the rich dressing and balances the fish.
Salmon
Forms the body of the mold, giving the dish its flesh texture and main flavor.
Sugar
Adds gentle sweetness that rounds out the acidity of the vinegar and mustard.

The step that matters

Dissolve the gelatine fully in the hot dressing. Gelatine only sets properly when fully dissolved. Undissolved granules or clumps leave soft spots and a weak, uneven set, so stir constantly until the mixture is smooth before straining and adding the salmon.

Swap the mustard

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

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

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