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Salad

Fish Salad

A salad of shredded fish, lettuce, and mayonnaise, garnished with beets, eggs, lemon, and seasoned with Worcestershire, onion juice, vinegar, celery, parsley, dressing, and paprika.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,467 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Fish Salad

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a bowl, combine the shredded fish, chopped lettuce, and mayonnaise.

  2. Add a few drops of Worcestershire sauce and onion juice for extra flavor.

  3. Mix in vinegar, chopped celery, parsley, special salad dressing, and paprika.

  4. Garnish with cold boiled beets, pieces of hard-boiled egg, or slices of lemon.

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 + celerytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

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

  2. Lettuce + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,033 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  3. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Lettuce + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,562 recipes

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

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

Mayonnaise
Adds richness and moisture, binding the fish and vegetables into a creamy salad.
Cooked fish
Forms the main body of the salad, giving it substance and a savoury base.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the rich dressing.
Celery
Contributes crisp texture and a fresh, slightly sharp bite.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, lettuce, egg, lemon, sauce, vinegar, celery):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Cucumberfits better
  3. Horseradishfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, lettuce, egg, lemon, sauce, vinegar, celery. 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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