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Salad

Salmon Salad

A salad of lettuce and salmon dressed with a mixture of egg yolk, mustard, vinegar, cream, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Salmon Salad

Why it works: Lettuce and mustard 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 Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. In a bowl, mix the hard boiled egg yolk, mustard, pepper, and coarse sea salt.

  2. Slowly add the vinegar, then stir in the cream until well combined.

Assemble and serve

  1. Arrange the lettuce and salmon on a serving dish.

  2. Pour the dressing over the salmon and lettuce.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Lettuce + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,356 recipes

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

  2. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  4. Lettuce + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,037 recipes

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

  5. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Hard boiled egg yolk
Its fats and emulsifying lecithin help bind the cream and vinegar into a smooth dressing.
Cream
Adds fat and body, giving the dressing a rich, smooth texture.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the dressing a sharp, bright flavour.
Mustard
Adds sharpness and helps stabilise the emulsion of the dressing.
Salmon
Provides the main protein and rich, savoury flavour of the salad.

The step that matters

Slowly add the vinegar, then stir in the cream. Adding the acid gradually to the yolk and mustard lets the emulsion form. Adding it too fast, or the cream too early, can make the dressing break or turn thin.

Swap the lettuce

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

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Cucumberfits about as well
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, cream, vinegar, egg, mustard, pepper, sugar. 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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