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Salad

Fish Salad

A salad of boiled fish mixed with celery, butter, olive oil, mustard, pepper, salt, sugar, cream, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Fish Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the fish until tender.

  2. Chop the fish finely.

Make the salad

  1. In a bowl, combine the chopped fish and celery.

  2. Moisten with melted butter, olive oil, mustard, pepper, salt, sugar, and cream.

  3. Add vinegar to achieve the desired consistency.

  4. Garnish with celery tops.

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. Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Olive + mustardtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 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

Whitefish, trout, or pike
Provides the flaked, tender body of the salad.
Melted butter
Adds richness and moisture that keeps the fish from drying out.
Cream
Adds moisture and softness to bind the chopped fish together.
Celery
Adds crisp texture and a fresh, mild crunch against the soft fish.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and balances the richness.

The step that matters

Boil the fish until tender. Overcooking toughens and dries the fish proteins, while undercooking leaves it unpleasantly firm. Stopping when the flesh just flakes gives a moist, tender result that holds well when chopped and mixed.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (whitefish, butter, olive, mustard, pepper, sugar, cream):

  1. Capersfits about as well
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Garlicfits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against whitefish, butter, olive, mustard, pepper, sugar, cream. 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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