Skip to main content
Main

Fish Salad

A salad of boiled halibut, potatoes, beets, string beans, cauliflower, and parsley, dressed with French dressing and served with mayonnaise.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Beans and cauliflower match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 290 recipes. Both carry 2,3-pentanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Fish Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the ingredients

  1. Boil the halibut in salted water until tender, then drain and place on a platter.

  2. Boil the small potatoes, beets, string beans, and cauliflower until tender, then drain.

Assemble and serve

  1. Arrange the potatoes next to the fish, followed by parsley, beets, cauliflower, and string beans around the edge.

  2. Pour a good French dressing over the salad.

  3. Let the salad sit for an hour to saturate the fish.

  4. Serve with mayonnaise.

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. Beans + cauliflowertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together290 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

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

  3. Potato + beanstop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together655 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  4. Cauliflower + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together233 recipes

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

  5. Beans + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,376 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Halibut
Provides the flaked, tender fish that forms the centre of the salad.
French dressing
Adds acidity and moisture, soaking into the fish and vegetables as it rests.
Mayonnaise
Adds richness and fat, balancing the sharp dressing and lean fish.

The step that matters

Let the salad sit for an hour to saturate the fish. Resting lets the acidic dressing penetrate the cooked fish and vegetables, seasoning them evenly. Serving too soon leaves the dressing sitting on the surface and the fish under-flavoured.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beans, cauliflower, parsley):

  1. Broccolifits better
  2. Turnipfits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beans, cauliflower, parsley. 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.

More fish salad recipes

Cold Boiled 3with Mayonnaise 3 See all 81 →

You might also like

Potato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesPotato RollsPotato Rolls78 recipesPotato ChipsPotato Chips53 recipesSweet Potato CroquettesSweet Potato Croquettes53 recipes