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Fish Salad

A chilled salad of flaked white fish with beans, peas, carrots, beets, French dressing, mayonnaise, capers, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Beans and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,443 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Fish Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the fresh fish with a tablespoon of vinegar to help it flake.

  2. Add fresh beans, peas, carrots (if using), and beets to the fish.

Dress and serve

  1. Mix thoroughly with French dressing.

  2. Serve topped with mayonnaise made with vinegar from capers.

  3. Garnish with a few capers on top.

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. Beans + carrottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,443 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  2. Beans + caperstop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together76 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Beans + peastop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together949 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  4. Peas + carrottop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,994 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  5. Carrot + caperstop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together288 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold white fish
Forms the flaked main body of the salad.
Fresh beans
Add bulk and a fresh, tender texture to the salad.
Fresh peas
Add sweetness and a tender texture to the salad.
Beets
Add earthy sweetness and a vivid colour to the salad.
French dressing
Moistens the mixture and adds tangy, seasoned flavour.
Mayonnaise
Adds fat and richness, giving a creamy topping.

The step that matters

Boiling the fish with vinegar. Fish overcooked in boiling liquid becomes dry and tough, and it breaks into small pieces rather than flaking into large, tender pieces. Keeping the fish gently cooked until it just flakes preserves moisture and texture, and the vinegar helps the proteins firm up so the fish separates cleanly.

Swap the carrot

The recipe marks carrot as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, vinegar, beans, peas, capers):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Lettucefits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, vinegar, beans, peas, capers. 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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