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Salmon Salad

Salmon salad with celery, vinegar sauce, butter, mustard, egg yolks, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Salmon Salad

Why it works: Celery and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Salmon Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove bones from the salmon and chop the celery.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, combine ½ cup of vinegar, butter, salt, mustard, and pepper. Heat until boiling. Remove from heat.

  2. Pour the hot mixture over the beaten egg yolks. Stir until thickened.

Assemble and serve

  1. Pour the sauce over the salmon and celery mixture. Mix well. Add cream to taste.

  2. Serve.

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. Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

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 salad and supplies its flesh and flavour.
Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce as they set with gentle heat, and add richness.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the sauce.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that sharpens the sauce and balances the rich yolks and butter.
Celery
Adds crunchy texture that contrasts with the soft salmon.

The step that matters

Stir the yolks into the hot mixture. Egg yolks thicken when gently heated, but if the hot liquid is poured in too quickly or stirred too little, the yolks can scramble into lumps. Adding the hot mixture slowly while stirring keeps the sauce smooth.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Dillfits better
  4. Celerythe original

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