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Aquarium Salad

A gelatin-based salad with sardines, lettuce, and mint, served with mayonnaise and watercress.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lettuce and watercress match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 307 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Aquarium Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mint jelly

  1. Wash the mint.

  2. Pour boiling water over the mint.

  3. Soak the gelatin in cold water for 30 minutes.

  4. Add lemon juice and sugar to the gelatin.

  5. Pour the gelatin mixture over the hot mint water.

  6. Stir until the gelatin dissolves.

  7. Strain the mixture.

  8. Color the strained mixture with green food coloring.

Assemble the mold

  1. Wet a mold.

  2. Place the wet mold in a dishpan of ice water.

  3. Pour the jelly into the mold to a depth of 1 inch.

  4. Once the jelly has set, add a layer of yellow sardines.

  5. Pour more jelly over the sardines.

  6. Let the mixture harden.

  7. Add more fish and jelly.

  8. Wash and dry the inside leaves of the lettuce to represent shells.

  9. Pour the remaining jelly over the lettuce to create a smooth finish.

  10. Set aside to harden.

Serve

  1. Serve with mayonnaise, garnished with watercress.

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. Lettuce + watercresstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together307 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Lemon + watercresstop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together579 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Mint + lemontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,998 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Gelatin + sugartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Mint + lettucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together569 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

Gelatin
Sets the liquid mint mixture into a firm jelly that holds the fish in place.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the sharpness of the lemon juice.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor of the jelly.
Fresh mint
Provides the main aroma and flavor of the jelly through steeping in hot water.
Yellow sardines
Form the fish layers that give the salad its main flavor and filling.

The step that matters

Pour the jelly into the mold to a depth of 1 inch. Gelatin sets only when cold enough, so the mold should be chilled in ice water and each layer allowed to set before adding the next. Pouring too much at once or onto unset jelly can blur the layers or let the sardines float.

Swap the mint

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (gelatin, sugar, lemon, lettuce, watercress):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Mintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against gelatin, sugar, lemon, lettuce, watercress. 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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