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Fish Salads

A salad of sautéed fish fillets dressed with a yolk, oil, vinegar, and herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and tarragon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,563 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Fish Salads

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. In a medium bowl, combine the egg yolks, salt, pepper, sugar, onions, parsley, and tarragon or chervil.

  2. Slowly drizzle in oil while stirring with a wooden spoon until the mixture thickens. Gradually add vinegar to taste, adjusting for flavor.

Cook the fish

  1. Melt butter in a sauté pan over low heat. Add the fish fillets to the pan.

  2. Season with salt, pepper, and lemon juice, and sauté until cooked through.

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. Parsley + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + tarragontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Tarragon + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,547 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Emulsify the oil and vinegar into a thick, stable dressing.
Oil
Forms the body of the emulsified dressing, giving it richness.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the oil.
Butter
Adds fat and flavor for gentle sautéing of the fish.
Fillets of fish
Provide the main protein, which cooks through in the butter.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity and freshness to the cooked fish.

The step that matters

Drizzling in the oil. Oil must be added slowly while whisking so it disperses into tiny droplets held by the egg yolk's lecithin. Adding it too fast breaks the emulsion, leaving the dressing oily and thin instead of thick.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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