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Salad

Fish or Game Salad

A salad of cold fish or game with greens, vegetables, mayonnaise, and herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Fish and sorrel work together. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and 25 recipes mention both. Both carry acetaldehyde, which smells pungent, ethereal. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

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

Also mentioned in the method: shrimp, lobster, scallop

Directions

Prepare

  1. Take the remains of any cold boiled fish and cut them into small scallops or neat pieces about 1.5 inches.

  2. Dip the fish pieces into mayonnaise sauce.

  3. Prepare two young heads of lettuce, a little endive, and watercress; drain in a colander.

  4. Dry the greens thoroughly in a clean cloth by shaking.

  5. Break the lettuce, watercress, and endive into pieces about ¾ inch long.

  6. Mince a small sprig of chervil, two leaves of tarragon, and a few leaves of sorrel.

  7. Peel and slice one cucumber and one beetroot.

  8. Mix all ingredients thoroughly.

  9. Rub the serving dish with garlic.

Assemble and garnish

  1. Layer the greens at the bottom of the dish, followed by a layer of cold fish, meat, chicken, lobster, shrimp, fowl, or game.

  2. Add a thin layer of mayonnaise sauce, then another layer of vegetables, repeating until finished with mayonnaise sauce.

  3. Garnish with nasturtium flowers, and arrange some beetroot and cucumber around the edge of the dish.

  4. Optionally, add hard-boiled eggs, olives, or aspic jelly for decoration.

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 + sorreltop 17% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together25 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  2. Chervil + sorreltop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together247 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Tarragon + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together795 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Lettuce + beetroottop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together678 recipes

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

  5. Lettuce + sorreltop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together317 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Mayonnaise sauce
Coats the fish and binds the salad with rich, creamy moisture and flavour.
Cold fish
Provides the main protein, with mayonnaise adding moisture and richness.
Lettuce
Forms the crisp, leafy base that gives the salad its fresh texture.
Endive
Adds crisp texture and a slightly bitter note that balances the rich mayonnaise.
Beetroot
Adds earthy sweetness and a vivid colour to the salad.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add richness and firm texture as an optional decoration.

The step that matters

Drying the greens thoroughly. Leftover water dilutes the mayonnaise sauce and makes the leaves wilt and the dressing slide off, so the greens must be fully dry before layering.

Flavor stand-ins for the cucumber

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lettuce, beetroot, egg, fish, tarragon, chervil, sauce):

  1. Chivebetter flavor fit
  2. Shallotbetter flavor fit
  3. Asparagusabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lettuce, beetroot, egg, fish, tarragon, chervil, sauce. 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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