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Tuna Fish Salad

A salad made with flaked tuna, green pepper, celery, olives, French dressing, and mayonnaise.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Tuna Fish Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Flake the tuna fish.

  2. Add chopped celery, chopped hard boiled egg, and finely shredded green pepper.

  3. Mix with French dressing.

Rest and serve

  1. Let stand for several hours before serving.

  2. Add the chopped olives and serve with mayonnaise.

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. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  2. Celery + olivetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,667 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  3. Pepper + olivetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,263 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Fish + olivetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together279 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Fish + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,948 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Tuna fish
Forms the main body of the salad and provides its protein and savory flavor.
French dressing
Adds moisture and acidity that flavor the tuna and softened vegetables.
Celery
Adds crisp texture and fresh, mild crunch against the soft fish.
Hard boiled egg
Adds creamy richness and body to the salad.
Olives
Add salty, briny flavor that contrasts with the mild fish.
Mayonnaise
Adds fat and creaminess, binding the salad and softening its texture.

The step that matters

Let stand for several hours before serving. Resting lets the acidic French dressing soak into the tuna and vegetables, so flavors blend evenly rather than tasting sharp on the surface.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, pepper, egg, olive. 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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