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Salad

Salmon Salad

A cold salad of flaked canned salmon and peas dressed with a vinegar, egg, flour, butter sauce.

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

Why it works: Salmon and peas work together. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 375 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Salmon Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the salad

  1. Flake the salmon, removing skin and bones.

  2. Drain the peas and mix them with the salmon.

Make the dressing

  1. Combine vinegar, egg, flour, and butter in a double boiler, and mix well.

  2. Season the dressing with salt and pepper.

  3. Cook for 15 minutes.

Assemble and serve

  1. Pour the dressing over the salmon and peas mixture.

  2. Serve cold.

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. Salmon + peastop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together375 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Peas + peppertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,331 recipes

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

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Egg
Thickens the dressing as it cooks and binds it into a smooth, creamy sauce.
Flour
Thickens the dressing by swelling with liquid, giving it body.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the dressing.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the dressing a sharp, tangy flavour.

The step that matters

Cook the dressing gently in the double boiler. Egg proteins set when heated, so gentle indirect heat keeps the dressing smooth and thickened rather than curdled or lumpy. Direct high heat can scramble the egg.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Sesamefits better
  2. Almondfits about as well
  3. Walnutfits about as well
  4. Peasthe original

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