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Salad

Mayonnaise of Fish

A salad of cold boiled fish, lettuce, and a mayonnaise dressing made from eggs, oil, vinegar, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 of the eggs smooth with the oil.

  2. Add the sugar, salt, mustard, and pepper, mixing well.

  3. Gradually add the vinegar, a few drops at a time.

Assemble and serve

  1. Cut the fish into strips about 1 inch long and shred the lettuce.

  2. Mix the fish and lettuce in a salad bowl.

  3. Pour the dressing over the mixture and garnish with rings of the egg whites.

  4. Serve immediately to prevent the lettuce from becoming limp.

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

Hard-boiled eggs
Yolks are mashed with oil to form a smooth, thick emulsified dressing base.
Oil
Emulsifies with the egg yolks to give the dressing its rich, creamy body.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the dressing and balances the richness of the oil and yolks.
Cold boiled fish
Provides the main protein and substance of the salad.
Lettuce
Forms the crisp, cool base that the fish and dressing are served over.

The step that matters

Gradually add the vinegar, a few drops at a time. Adding vinegar slowly lets the yolk and oil emulsify into a stable, smooth dressing. Pouring it in quickly can cause the mixture to split and look oily and curdled.

Swap the lettuce

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

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

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