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Salad

Sardine Salad with Mayonnaise

A salad of sardines, onion, mayonnaise, curry powder, hard boiled eggs, and herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Tarragon and chervil match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 824 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Sardine Salad with Mayonnaise

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and assemble

  1. Remove the bones from the sardines and cut them in half.

  2. Lay the sardine halves on pieces of onion.

Dress and garnish

  1. Mix the mayonnaise with curry powder and pour it over the sardines.

  2. Garnish with slices of hard boiled eggs.

  3. Sprinkle with finely chopped parsley, tarragon, and chervil.

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. Tarragon + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together824 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Parsley + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Parsley + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together774 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Onion + cherviltop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together668 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

Sardines
Provide the main savoury flesh and rich, oily flavour of the salad.
Mayonnaise
Adds fat and creaminess, coating the sardines and giving the salad moisture.
Curry powder
Adds warm, aromatic spice that flavours the mayonnaise dressing.
Hard boiled eggs
Add a mild, creamy texture and bright contrast as a garnish.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, parsley, tarragon, chervil. 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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