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Salmon Mayonnaise

A salmon dish topped with a homemade mayonnaise sauce, served on lettuce and garnished with cucumber slices and capers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,356 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Salmon Mayonnaise

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Turn out the tin of salmon.

  2. Arrange the fish on a plate, removing all skin and bones.

Make the mayonnaise

  1. In a small bowl, combine the egg yolk and mustard, stirring with a wooden spoon.

  2. Slowly add the salad oil while stirring vigorously until the mayonnaise thickens.

  3. Once thickened, add the tarragon vinegar and lemon juice, thinning with cold stock if necessary.

Assemble and serve

  1. Prepare some lettuce and lay it on a dish.

  2. Arrange the salmon on top.

  3. Pour the mayonnaise sauce over the salmon and garnish with cucumber slices and capers.

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 + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,356 recipes

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

  2. Lettuce + cucumbertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,409 recipes

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

  3. Tarragon + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together425 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Mustard + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together901 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Tarragon + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,137 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolk
Emulsifies the oil and vinegar into a thick, stable mayonnaise.
Salad oil
Provides fat that, emulsified with the yolk, gives the sauce its body and richness.
Salmon
Supplies the main protein and flavour of the dish.
Tarragon vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and balances the richness of the oil.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity and fresh aroma that lift the flavour of the sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the oil slowly while stirring. Oil must be added gradually so droplets are dispersed and held by the egg yolk's lecithin. Adding it too fast can break the emulsion, leaving a thin, oily sauce that will not thicken.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Limefits about as well
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Cherryfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, egg, mustard, tarragon, vinegar, lettuce, cucumber. 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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