Name: Fish Salad
Ingredients: 1 cup cooked fish; 3 hard cooked eggs; 2 cold boiled potatoes; cream or vinegar (to taste); coarse sea salt (to taste); pepper (to taste); lettuce for serving

Why it works: Potato and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 322 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Fish Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Use any kind of cooked fish.
Cut the whites of the eggs into small pieces.
Add the egg whites to the fish.
Mash the yolks.
Thin the yolks with a little cream or vinegar if you prefer a sour taste.

Mix and serve

Mix all ingredients together.
Season with salt and pepper.
Serve on a bed of lettuce.

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.

Potato + lettucetop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together322 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,305 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Pepper + lettucetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,037 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Fish + potatotop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together134 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).
Potato + creamtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,481 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Hard cooked eggs: Egg whites add body and bulk, while mashed yolks bind and enrich the salad.
Cream or vinegar: Thins the mashed yolks and adds richness or a sour, bright flavour.
Cooked fish: Forms the main body of the salad, providing protein and texture.
Cold boiled potatoes: Adds starchy bulk and a soft, tender texture to the salad.