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Fish Mayonnaise

A chilled fish dish served with a mayonnaise dressing made from boiled egg yolks, mustard, sugar, vinegar, and salad oil.

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 ↓

Fish Mayonnaise

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dressing

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

  2. Add salt, pepper, mustard, sugar, and vinegar; beat until light.

  3. Gently stir in the frothed egg white just before serving.

Assemble and serve

  1. Cut the fish into pieces one inch in length.

  2. Pour half the dressing over the fish and spread the rest on top.

  3. Arrange blanched lettuce leaves around the dish.

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. Pepper + vinegartop 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

Egg yolks
Emulsify the oil and vinegar into a smooth, thick dressing.
Salad oil
Provides fat that gives the dressing its rich, creamy body.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the richness of the oil.
Egg white
Frothed and folded in, it lightens the dressing's texture.
Mustard
Acts as an emulsifier that helps hold the dressing together.

The step that matters

Gently stir in the frothed egg white just before serving. Frothed egg white holds air that gives lightness. Vigorous stirring deflates it, and the dressing loses volume and becomes dense. Waiting until just before serving keeps the foam from collapsing.

Swap the lettuce

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, 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 egg, 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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