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Salad

Salad of Anchovies

A salad of anchovy fillets, lettuce, and separated hard-boiled eggs dressed with oil, vinegar, and beaten egg yolk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lettuce and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,370 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Salad of Anchovies

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Divide the anchovies into fillets, wash, and bone them.

  2. Cut the hard-boiled yolks and whites of the eggs separately.

  3. Slice the lettuce as usual.

Assemble and dress

  1. Arrange the anchovy fillets, lettuce, and egg whites and yolks attractively.

  2. Season with oil, vinegar, and pour the beaten egg yolk over the salad.

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 + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,370 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Egg + lettucetop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,301 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  3. Egg + vinegartop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,922 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and vinegar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,922 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Anchovies
Provide the salty, savoury flavour that is the centre of the salad.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add rich, creamy texture and body through the yolks and firm whites.
Lettuce
Forms the crisp, fresh base that holds the other ingredients.
Oil
Adds richness and carries flavour across the leaves.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the fat.
Beaten egg yolk
Poured over the salad to add richness and help bind the dressing.

Swap the lettuce

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, vinegar):

  1. Cucumberfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, vinegar. 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.

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