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Sardine Salad

A salad of cooked fish and sardines served on lettuce with lemon and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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

Prepare

  1. Split the sardines and remove any bones.

Assemble and serve

  1. Arrange the cooked fish on a bed of crisp lettuce.

  2. Cover the fish with the sardine dressing.

  3. Place the sardines on top, with the ends meeting in the center.

  4. Make a wreath at the base of the dish with thin slices of lemon.

  5. Garnish with parsley or 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.

  1. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Lettuce + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,483 recipes

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

  3. Lettuce + lemontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,559 recipes

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

  4. Fish + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,889 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. 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, providing the main body and protein of the dish.
Sardines
Supply the salad's rich, savory flavor as the showpiece laid across the top.
Crisp lettuce
Provides a cool, crisp base that contrasts with the soft fish.
Sardine dressing
Adds moisture and seasoning that coats the fish and binds the salad together.

Swap the lettuce

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, lemon, parsley):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, lemon, parsley. 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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