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Mayonnaise of Salmon

A dish of boiled salmon served with mayonnaise, cucumber, lettuce, lemon, and aspic jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,409 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Mayonnaise of Salmon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the salmon

  1. Boil the salmon carefully and shape it like the letter 'S' so it stands on the dish.

Make the sauce and mask the fish

  1. Mix ½ cup mayonnaise with ½ cup liquid aspic.

  2. When the mixture begins to set, mash the fish with it.

Garnish and serve

  1. Garnish the back of the salmon with sliced lemon and cucumber.

  2. Create a border of lettuce around the dish and garnish with aspic jelly.

  3. Serve the remaining mayonnaise sauce in a separate dish.

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. Cucumber + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,409 recipes

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

  2. Lettuce + lemontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,559 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  3. Cucumber + lemontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Salmon + cucumbertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together513 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  5. Salmon + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,918 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

Salmon
Forms the main body of the dish, its flaked flesh held together by the sauce.
Mayonnaise
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy texture through its emulsified oil and egg.
Aspic jelly
Gelatin that sets as it cools, firming the sauce so it binds the fish and holds its shape.

The step that matters

Mashing the fish as the mixture begins to set. Aspic gelatin sets as it cools. If the fish is mashed in while the mixture is still runny, the sauce will not bind well. If it has set fully, the fish will not mix in evenly and the texture will be lumpy.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, cucumber, 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.

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