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Fish Salad

A salad of boiled fish mixed with cabbage or lettuce, seasoned like chicken salad and garnished with tender lettuce leaves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cabbage and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 622 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Fish Salad

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil and chop the fish or trout, but not too finely.

  2. Combine with an equal amount of chopped cabbage, celery, or lettuce.

  3. Season the mixture as you would for chicken salad.

  4. Garnish with the tender leaves of the heart 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.

  1. Cabbage + lettucetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together622 recipes

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

  2. Celery + lettucetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,033 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  3. Cabbage + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,840 recipes

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

  4. Fish + chickentop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together190 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Celery + chickentop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,375 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

What each ingredient does

Fresh white fish or trout
Provides the main protein and flaky texture of the salad.
Cabbage
Adds crunch and bulk, keeping the salad crisp rather than soft.
Celery
Contributes crisp texture and a fresh, mildly aromatic note.

The step that matters

Boil and chop the fish or trout, but not too finely.. Overcooking makes fish dry and firm, and chopping it too fine turns it mushy and pasty. Keeping it cooked just through and in moderate pieces preserves a tender, flaky texture that holds up when mixed.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, celery, chicken, lettuce):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, celery, chicken, lettuce. 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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