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Mayonnaise Fish

Mayonnaise Fish is a dish of cold boiled fish served with a mayonnaise dressing made from egg yolks, oil, mustard, sugar, vinegar, and egg white.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,356 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Mayonnaise Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Cut the cold boiled fish into pieces about 1 inch long.

Make the dressing

  1. In a bowl, mix the egg yolks with salad oil or butter until smooth.

  2. Add salt, pepper, mustard, sugar, and vinegar to the mixture and beat until light.

  3. Just before serving, gently stir in the frothed egg white.

Serve

  1. Serve the fish in a glass dish, mixing half the dressing with it.

  2. Spread the remaining dressing on top and garnish with lettuce leaves.

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.

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. Mustard + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,356 recipes

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

  2. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Pepper + lettucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,037 recipes

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

  5. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 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

Egg yolks
Emulsify the oil and vinegar into a smooth, thick dressing.
Salad oil or butter
Adds richness and fat that gives the dressing body and a smooth mouthfeel.
Mustard
Helps stabilize the emulsion and adds a sharp, savory bite.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that balances the richness of the yolks and oil.
Raw egg white
Whipped to a froth and folded in, it lightens the dressing's texture.

The step that matters

Just before serving, gently stir in the frothed egg white. Folding rather than beating keeps the air bubbles from the egg white intact, so the dressing stays light. Adding it too early lets the foam collapse and the dressing turn dense.

Swap the lettuce

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

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Shallotfits about as well
  4. Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, egg, butter, pepper, mustard, sugar, vinegar. 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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