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Salad

Sturgeon in an Italian Salad

A salad of shredded cabbage lettuce topped with sturgeon, cucumber, anchovies, and Italian sauce, garnished with eggs and optional beetroot and lobster spawn.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Chervil and beetroot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 126 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Sturgeon in an Italian Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Shred and wash the cabbage lettuce.

  2. Finely chop the chervil and slice the cucumber.

Assemble and serve

  1. Place the lettuce in the center of a dish.

  2. Arrange the sturgeon over the lettuce in a star shape.

  3. Garnish with cucumber, beetroot, and lobster spawn if available.

  4. Add anchovies cut into shreds as desired.

  5. Just before serving, pour Italian sauce over the salad.

  6. Garnish with chopped hard-boiled eggs and optionally add some nasturtium flowers.

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. Chervil + beetroottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together126 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Cucumber + beetroottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together345 recipes

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

  3. Chervil + cucumbertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together144 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Cabbage + beetroottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together377 recipes

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

  5. Cabbage + cucumbertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together722 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cabbage lettuce
Forms the crisp base that holds the other components.
Sturgeon
Provides the main protein, arranged over the lettuce as the centrepiece.
Anchovies
Adds a salty, savoury note that contrasts with the mild lettuce.
Hard-boiled eggs
Adds richness and a soft texture as a garnish.

The step that matters

Just before serving, pour Italian sauce over the salad.. Dressing wilts and softens delicate leaves over time, so adding the sauce at the last moment keeps the lettuce crisp.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chervil, cucumber, sturgeon, beetroot, lobster, egg, sauce):

  1. Lettucefits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Horseradishfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chervil, cucumber, sturgeon, beetroot, lobster, egg, sauce. 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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