Name: Sardine Salad
Ingredients: 1 tin sardines; 2 eggs; 1 head of lettuce; salad dressing

Why it works: Egg and lettuce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 30% of all ingredient pairs, and 3,301 recipes mention both. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Sardine Salad

Ingredients

1 tin sardines
2 eggs
1 head of lettuce
salad dressing

Directions

Prepare

Open the sardines and remove the bones.

Assemble the salad

Break some lettuce into a bowl and lay the sardines on top.
Chop one egg and sprinkle it over the sardines.
Pour the salad dressing over the top.
Cover with the remaining lettuce.
Garnish with the other egg sliced and a little watercress or beetroot.

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.

Egg + lettucetop 30% of all pairs

Aroma overlaplow

Mentioned 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

Sardines: Provide the main protein and rich, savoury flavour of the salad.
Eggs: Add richness and a soft, creamy texture through the chopped and sliced egg.
Lettuce: Forms the leafy base and adds fresh crispness and moisture.
Salad dressing: Adds moisture and acidity that bind the flavours together.

“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.