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Fish Salad

Striped bass steaks served with a lemon butter sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Fish Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Cut the fish into steaks.

  2. Reserve the bones.

Poach the fish

  1. In a pot, combine the bones and onion with 1 quart of boiling water, adding butter, salt, and pepper.

  2. Boil the fish steaks in this liquid until firm.

  3. Transfer the fish steaks to a platter.

  4. Strain the cooking liquid.

Make the lemon butter sauce

  1. Squeeze in the lemon juice, adding cayenne to taste.

  2. Remove the pot from heat.

  3. Gently mix in the beaten eggs with a little cold water, stirring constantly.

  4. Return to low heat.

  5. Stir until the mixture thickens, but do not let it boil.

  6. Pour the sauce over the fish.

  7. Let it cool.

  8. Garnish with strips of beet or red pepper and small lettuce leaves.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  3. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Fish + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,889 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Striped bass
Forms the main body of the salad, cooked until firm in the poaching liquid.
Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce as they set gently with heat, giving it a smooth, rich body.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the poaching liquid and sauce.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and balances its richness.

The step that matters

Thickening the sauce without boiling. Egg yolks scramble if they get too hot. Keeping the mixture on low heat and stirring constantly lets the proteins thicken it smoothly instead of curdling it.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (striped bass, fish, butter, egg, pepper, lemon):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against striped bass, fish, butter, egg, pepper, lemon. 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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