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Fish a LA Orleans

A cold fish terrine with beets, olives, capers, and gelatin, served on lettuce with mayonnaise dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Fish and olive match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and 216 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: egg, fish (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Prepare the terrine

  1. Season the fish well and boil it until it can be pulled apart into small pieces.

  2. In a mold, layer the fish, beets, olives, and capers until full.

Make the gelatine broth

  1. Soak the gelatine in enough cold water to dissolve it.

  2. Pour the hot fish broth over the gelatine until dissolved.

  3. Pour the broth into the mold over the layers until it is full.

Serve

  1. Once cold, remove from the mold and serve on lettuce with mayonnaise 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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Fish + olivetop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together216 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  2. Capers + lettucetop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together372 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Olive + caperstop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together1,555 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Olive + lettucetop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Fish + caperstop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together162 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Large fish
Forms the main body of the terrine, set firmly in the gelatine.
Gelatine
Sets the broth into a firm jelly that holds the layers together when sliced.
Beets
Adds colour and an earthy sweetness to the layers.
Olives
Adds salty, briny flavour that contrasts with the fish.
Capers
Adds sharp, acidic bite that cuts through the rich fish and mayonnaise.
Fish broth
Carries flavour into the gelatine and fills the spaces between the layers.

The step that matters

Soak the gelatine before dissolving it. Gelatine must hydrate in cold water before hot broth is added, so it dissolves evenly. Adding it dry or to hot liquid can leave clumps and weaken the set.

Flavor stand-ins for the lettuce

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, olive, capers):

  1. Tomatobetter flavor fit
  2. Shallotabout as good a flavor fit
  3. Mustardabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, olive, capers. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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