Name: Fish Salad
Ingredients: cooked salmon or any boiled or baked fish, skin and bones removed; crisp lettuce leaves; mayonnaise or cream salad dressing; 1 cup cold peas (optional); stuffed olives (for garnish)

Why it works: Lettuce and peas match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,293 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Fish Salad

Ingredients

cooked salmon or any boiled or baked fish, skin and bones removed
crisp lettuce leaves
mayonnaise or cream salad dressing
1 cup cold peas (optional)
stuffed olives (for garnish)

Directions

Prepare

Remove skin and bones from the cooked fish.

Assemble and serve

Arrange the fish on crisp lettuce leaves.
Serve with mayonnaise or cream salad dressing.
If desired, add 1 cup of cold peas.
Garnish with stuffed olives.

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 + peastop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,293 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Lettuce + olivetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,580 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Peas + olivetop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,066 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-hex-3-en-1-ol (freshly cut grass green and herbaceous notes).
Salmon + peastop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together375 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Salmon + creamtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,401 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Cooked salmon or fish: Provides the flaky protein that forms the body of the salad.
Mayonnaise or cream salad dressing: Adds moisture and richness, binding the fish into a creamy salad.
Crisp lettuce leaves: Offers a crisp, cool base that contrasts with the soft fish and dressing.