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Moulded Salmon

A chilled salmon salad set in a mould with a mustard‑sugar 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. Mix the first six ingredients to make the salad dressing.

  2. Soften the gelatine in cold water.

  3. Dissolve the softened gelatine in the hot dressing while stirring constantly.

  4. Strain the mixture.

Set the salmon

  1. Add the salmon to the dressing and mix well.

  2. Pour the mixture into a moistened mould and chill until set.

Serve

  1. Unmould the salad onto a bed of lettuce.

  2. Garnish with parsley and hard-cooked eggs or olives.

  3. 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 shape that holds when unmoulded.
Eggs
Thicken the hot dressing as they cook and add richness and body.
Sweet milk or cream
Adds richness and a smooth, mellow body to the dressing.
Vinegar
Provides the sharp acidity that gives the dressing its tang.
Sugar
Softens the sharpness of the vinegar, balancing the sweetness and acidity.
Salmon
Forms the main body and flavour of the salad, held together by the set gelatine.

The step that matters

Dissolving the gelatine in the hot dressing. Gelatine must be fully dissolved and stirred constantly, or it clumps. Undissolved specks leave the set uneven, gritty, or weak, so straining afterwards helps remove any remaining lumps.

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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