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Sardine Salad

A salad of cooked fish topped with sardines, lemon, parsley, and a dressing of oil, vinegar, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Sardine Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Arrange the cooked fish on a bed of lettuce.

  2. Split the sardines.

  3. Remove any bones.

Dress and serve

  1. Cover the fish with the sardine dressing.

  2. Place the sardines on top, with the ends meeting in the dish.

  3. At the base, layer thinly sliced lemon.

  4. Garnish with parsley.

  5. Serve immediately.

Make the dressing

  1. Mix oil, vinegar, salt, and pepper in a cup.

  2. Add a little oil to the salt. Mix well.

  3. Add the remaining oil and vinegar.

  4. Grate a little onion juice into the dressing.

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 + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cooked fish
Forms the base of the salad and carries the dressing.
Sardines
Provide the main rich, oily flavour and a firm texture.
Oil
Adds moisture and richness, carrying the flavour of the dressing.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that balances the richness of the oil and fish.
Lemon
Adds bright acidity and fresh aroma at the base of the dish.

The step that matters

Serve immediately. Once dressed, the lettuce softens and the oil and vinegar soak into the fish, so the salad loses its fresh texture and contrast if it waits.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, lemon, parsley, vinegar, pepper. 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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