Name: Sardine Salad
Ingredients: 1 quart cooked fish; 6 sardines; crisp lettuce; sardine dressing; thin slices of lemon; parsley or additional lettuce for garnish

Why it works: Lemon and parsley 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 ↓

Sardine Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Arrange the cooked fish on a bed of crisp lettuce.
Split the sardines and remove any bones.
Cover the fish with the sardine dressing.
Place the sardines on top, with the ends meeting in the center.
Make a wreath at the base of the dish with thin slices of lemon.
Garnish with parsley or additional lettuce and serve immediately.

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.

Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,037 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Lettuce + parsleytop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,483 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Lettuce + lemontop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,559 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Fish + lemontop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,889 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Fish + lettucetop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together196 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Cooked fish: Forms the bulk of the salad and provides the main substance of the dish.
Sardines: Add the distinctive rich, savory flavor and form the decorative topping.
Sardine dressing: Moistens the fish and carries flavor through the salad.
Crisp lettuce: Provides a cool, crunchy base that contrasts with the soft fish.