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Salad

Salmon Salad

A salad of chopped hard‑boiled eggs and salmon mixed with oil, vinegar, salt, pepper, and mustard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Salmon Salad

Why it works: Vinegar and mustard 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 ↓

Salmon Salad

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Chop the whites of the eggs and the salmon finely.

  2. Rub the yolks smooth with a spoon.

  3. Mix the yolks with the oil from the salmon, vinegar, salt, pepper, and mustard, then combine all ingredients 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. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  3. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Egg + salmontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,485 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Salmon + mustardtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together839 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Whites give bulk and chew; yolks, rubbed smooth, form the creamy body of the dressing.
Salmon
Provides the main flesh and savoury flavour of the salad.
Oil from the salmon
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour and helping the yolks blend smooth.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the rich yolk and oil mixture.
Mustard
Adds sharp flavour and helps emulsify the yolk and oil dressing.

The step that matters

Rub the yolks smooth before mixing. Yolks left in lumps will not blend evenly with the oil and vinegar, leaving pockets of dense yolk in the salad. Pressing them smooth first lets the fat and acid emulsify into a uniform dressing.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Cucumberfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Mustardthe original
  4. Chivefits about as well

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