Skip to main content
Salad

Salmon Salad

A salad of salmon, pickles, eggs, and crackers with a creamy vinegar sauce.

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

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Salmon Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a bowl, combine the salmon, sweet pickles, hard boiled eggs, and crushed crackers.

  2. In a saucepan, mix the vinegar, beaten egg, mustard, milk, and butter.

Make the dressing

  1. Cook over low heat, stirring until the sauce is smooth.

  2. Allow the sauce to cool, then pour it over the salmon mixture and mix well.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Salmon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,481 recipes

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

  4. Salmon + eggtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,485 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Salmon + milktop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,577 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Salmon
Forms the bulk of the salad and provides its main protein and flavour.
Hard boiled eggs
Add body and a soft, creamy texture to the salad.
Beaten egg
Thickens the sauce as it cooks and helps it set smooth.
Crackers
Absorb moisture and bind the salmon mixture together.
Butter
Adds richness and smoothness to the sauce.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the sauce a sharp, tangy flavour.

The step that matters

Cooking the sauce over low heat. The beaten egg can scramble if the heat is too high. Low heat with constant stirring lets the egg thicken the milk and vinegar mixture into a smooth sauce.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Cucumberfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Mustardthe original

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

More salmon salad recipes

Dressing 4Jellied 3 See all 153 →

You might also like

Chicken SaladChicken Salad623 recipesSalad DressingSalad Dressing491 recipesTomato SaladTomato Salad179 recipesCold SlawCold Slaw160 recipes