Name: Cold Boiled Fish a LA Vinaigrette
Ingredients: 1 whole fish; 2 cold hard-boiled eggs; Coarse sea salt (to taste); Small lettuce leaves (for garnish); Watercress (for garnish); Cold boiled potatoes or beets, sliced (for garnish); Parsley sprigs (for garnish); Vinaigrette sauce (for serving)

Why it works: Lettuce and watercress match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 307 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Cold Boiled Fish a LA Vinaigrette

Ingredients

1 whole fish
2 cold hard-boiled eggs
Coarse sea salt (to taste)
Small lettuce leaves (for garnish)
Watercress (for garnish)
Cold boiled potatoes or beets, sliced (for garnish)
Parsley sprigs (for garnish)
Vinaigrette sauce (for serving)

Directions

Remove the head and skin from the whole fish and place it in the center of a serving dish.
Finely chop the cold hard-boiled eggs with a silver knife or spoon to avoid discoloration.
Sprinkle the chopped eggs over the fish.
Garnish with small lettuce leaves, watercress, or slices of cold boiled potatoes or beets around the fish.
Add parsley sprigs for decoration.
Serve the vinaigrette sauce in a separate dish.
Pour a spoonful of the vinaigrette over the fish when serving.

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.

Lettuce + watercresstop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together307 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Watercress + parsleytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together469 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Watercress + potatotop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together170 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Lettuce + parsleytop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,483 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,855 recipes

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

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

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, egg, lettuce, watercress, parsley, sauce):

Horseradishfits better
Shallotfits better
Chivefits better
Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, egg, lettuce, watercress, parsley, sauce. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.