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Anchovy Salad

A salad of soaked anchovies, chopped eggs, parsley, dressed with oil and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,477 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Anchovy Salad

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the anchovies

  1. Soak the anchovies overnight in cold water.

  2. Remove the scales and bones from the anchovies. Cut the anchovies into thin pieces.

Prepare the eggs

  1. Boil the eggs until hard. Cool the eggs. Remove the shells.

  2. Cut three eggs into quarters for garnish.

  3. Chop the remaining two eggs, keeping the whites and yolks separate.

Assemble and serve

  1. Layer the anchovy fillets, chopped eggs, and parsley on a salad dish. Dress the salad with oil and vinegar. Serve the salad.

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. Parsley + vinegartop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,477 recipes

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

  2. Egg + parsleytop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,765 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Egg + vinegartop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,922 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and vinegar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,922 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Anchovies
Provide the main savory, salty flavor and the fish base of the salad.
Eggs
Add richness and body through the chopped whites and yolks.
Oil
Adds fat and carries flavor through the dressing.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the salty fish and rich eggs.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Dillfits better
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Capersfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, 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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