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Fish Salad

A salad of sliced white fish, onion, celery, vinegar, and mayonnaise, garnished with sardines.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,033 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Fish Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Cut the white fish into half-inch slices, two by four inches wide.

  2. Arrange the fish in a deep frying pan and cover with boiling water.

  3. Add the salt, onion, vinegar, and celery, then simmer until the fish is firm.

  4. Drain the fish and set aside to cool.

Serve

  1. Line a salad dish with lettuce leaves and lay the fish on top.

  2. Garnish with mayonnaise sauce and serve with extra dressing mixed with the sardines.

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

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  2. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Onion + lettucetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,562 recipes

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

  4. Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Vinegar + lettucetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,370 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

White fish
Forms the main body of the salad and turns firm and flaky when poached.
Mayonnaise sauce
Adds richness and moisture to the fish as a garnish.
Vinegar
Adds a sharp acidity that brightens the poaching liquid and the flavor of the fish.
Sardines
Add a strong, oily savory flavor to the dressing served alongside.

The step that matters

Simmer until the fish is firm. Simmering rather than boiling keeps the fish tender and prevents it from breaking apart. Overcooking toughens the protein and dries out the flesh, so the fish should be removed as soon as it turns opaque and firm.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, onion, vinegar, lettuce, sauce):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, onion, vinegar, lettuce, sauce. 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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