Skip to main content
Main

Salmon Salad

A salad made with canned salmon, hard‑boiled eggs, butter or olive oil, vinegar, mustard, salt, pepper, and parsley garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Salmon Salad

Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Salmon Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Carefully pick the salmon from the can.

  2. Boil the eggs hard, then separate the whites from the yolks.

Make the dressing

  1. Mash the yolks and mix smoothly with the melted butter or olive oil.

  2. In a bowl, dissolve the salt, mustard, and pepper in the vinegar.

  3. Mix the vinegar mixture with the yolk paste.

Assemble and serve

  1. Stir lightly through the salmon with a silver fork.

  2. Garnish with parsley and the egg whites cut into rings.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Mustard + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,588 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Salmon
Provides the main body and flavour of the salad.
Hard-boiled eggs
Yolks form a creamy base, and whites add texture as garnish.
Melted butter or olive oil
Adds fat and richness, helping the yolk paste become smooth.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the salad and balances the rich yolk paste.
Prepared mustard
Adds sharp flavour and helps emulsify the dressing.

The step that matters

Mix the vinegar mixture with the yolk paste. Adding the liquid too quickly can cause the yolk paste to split or turn grainy. Adding it gradually while stirring keeps the dressing smooth and cohesive.

Swap the mustard

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

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

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

Salmon CroquettesSalmon Croquettes129 recipesCanned SalmonCanned Salmon14 recipesSmoked SalmonSmoked Salmon14 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipes