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Fish Salad

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Capers and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 405 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Fish Salad

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Flake the cold fish.

  2. Add the pickled shrimps, chopped capers, and chopped hard-boiled egg.

  3. Mix the fish and other ingredients with some mayonnaise.

  4. Place the mixture in the center of a serving dish.

  5. Coat the mixture all over with mayonnaise.

  6. Garnish with watercress, lettuce, cucumber, and other vegetables.

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. Capers + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together405 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Watercress + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together60 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Beetroot + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together678 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  4. Watercress + beetroottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together143 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Watercress + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together307 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

Swap the cucumber

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, shrimp, watercress, beetroot, lettuce, capers, shallot):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Horseradishfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, shrimp, watercress, beetroot, lettuce, capers, shallot. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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