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Fish Salad

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Lettuce and beetroot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 678 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Fish Salad

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Cut the fish into fillets and roll them up, tying with thread.

  2. Boil the fillets until cooked, then let them cool and remove the threads.

  3. Wash the lettuce, mustard, cress, and beetroot; dry them and place in a salad bowl.

  4. Slice the fillets and arrange them upright in the salad.

  5. Top each fillet with a tablespoon of thick mayonnaise and serve the remaining sauce on the side.

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. Lettuce + beetroottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together678 recipes

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

  2. Lettuce + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,356 recipes

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

  3. Mustard + beetroottop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together484 recipes

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

  4. Mustard + saucetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,120 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Fish + lettucetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together196 recipes

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

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

Swap the beetroot

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

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Shallotfits about as well
  3. Beetrootthe original
  4. Chivefits about as well

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

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