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Salad

Mayonnaise of Fish

A salad of cold boiled fish and lettuce dressed with a mayonnaise made from egg yolks, oil, sugar, vinegar, mustard, and egg white.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,356 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Mayonnaise of Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. Rub the yolks smooth with the oil.

  2. Add sugar, salt, pepper, and mustard, and mix well.

  3. Gradually add vinegar and mix.

  4. Set aside the dressing, covered.

Assemble the salad

  1. Cut the fish into 1-inch strips.

  2. Shred the lettuce.

  3. Mix the fish and lettuce in a bowl.

  4. Whip the egg white until frothy and fold it into the dressing.

  5. Pour the dressing over the salad.

  6. Stir gently with a silver fork.

  7. Transfer to a glass dish.

  8. Garnish with rings of boiled egg whites.

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. Mustard + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,356 recipes

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

  2. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + lettucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,037 recipes

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

  5. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Emulsify the oil and vinegar into a smooth, thick dressing.
Oil
Adds fat and richness, giving the dressing its body and mild flavor.
Vinegar
Adds sharpness that balances the richness of the oil and yolks.
Egg white
Whipped to a froth, it adds lightness and an airy texture to the dressing.
Cod
Provides the main body and protein of the salad.
Lettuce
Adds crisp texture and bulk to the salad.

The step that matters

Fold in the whipped egg white gently. Whipped egg white traps air in tiny bubbles. Folding it in with a light, sweeping motion keeps those bubbles intact, so the dressing stays airy. Stirring hard or beating it again would deflate the foam and make the dressing dense.

Swap the lettuce

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

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Cucumberfits about as well
  4. Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, vinegar, pepper, mustard, fish. 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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