Name: Fish Salad
Ingredients: 4 ounces cold boiled fish; 1 head of lettuce; 1 hard-boiled egg; salad dressing or remoulade sauce

Why it works: Fish and lettuce work together. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 196 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Fish Salad

Ingredients

4 ounces cold boiled fish
1 head of lettuce
1 hard-boiled egg
salad dressing or remoulade sauce

Directions

Prepare

Prepare the salad dressing as you would for a lettuce salad.
Flake the cold boiled fish, removing skin and bones.
Wash and dry the lettuce, then shred it.

Assemble and garnish

In a bowl, layer the shredded lettuce, followed by the fish and dressing.
Repeat the layers, leaving plenty of lettuce for the top.
Garnish with slices of hard-boiled egg.

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.

Fish + lettucetop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together196 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Lettuce + saucetop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,019 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Fish + saucetop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,487 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Fish + eggtop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,782 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Lettuce + eggtop 30% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,301 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold boiled fish: Provides the main protein and flaky texture of the salad.
Lettuce: Forms the crisp, fresh base and bulk of the salad.
Hard-boiled egg: Adds richness and a firm, creamy contrast as a garnish.
Salad dressing or remoulade sauce: Adds moisture, fat and tang that bind the layers together.