Name: Anchovy Salad
Ingredients: 3 to 4 anchovies; Tender lettuce leaves; 2 fresh tomatoes; 3 to 4 young onions; A little cabbage; Parsley; Hygia Salad Dressing; Quartered lemon for garnish

Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Anchovy Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the anchovies

Soak the anchovies for 20 to 30 minutes, then wash and clean them.
Remove the bones, fins, heads, and tails from the anchovies.

Assemble and serve

Cover the bottom of a platter with tender lettuce leaves.
Cut the tomatoes, onions, cabbage, and parsley into small bits.
Mound the chopped vegetables on the platter and pour over some Hygia dressing.
Cover the mound with the prepared anchovies.
Garnish with quartered lemon and serve.

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.

Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,037 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Lettuce + cabbagetop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together622 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Lettuce + parsleytop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,483 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Lettuce + tomatotop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,655 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Onion + cabbagetop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,001 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Anchovies: Provide the salty, savory flavour that is the centrepiece of the salad.
Fresh tomatoes: Add juiciness and a fresh, slightly acidic note to the mound of vegetables.
Lettuce leaves: Form a crisp, tender base that holds the vegetables and dressing.
Hygia salad dressing: Adds moisture and seasoning that coats the chopped vegetables.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lettuce, tomato, cabbage, parsley, lemon):

Broccolifits better
Okrafits better
Spinachfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lettuce, tomato, cabbage, parsley, lemon. 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.