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Salad

Fillets of Salmon in an Italian Salad

A salad of shredded cabbage, beet, cucumber, anchovies, boiled eggs, lobster spawn, cauliflower or French beans, topped with salmon fillets and Italian salad sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Fillets of Salmon in an Italian Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the lettuces, remove the stalks, and cut them into large shreds.

  2. Slice the beet root and cucumber.

  3. Wash, pick, and cut the anchovies into long shreds.

  4. Chop the boiled egg yolks and whites separately.

  5. Rub the lobster spawn through a fine sieve and set aside.

  6. If using, boil the cauliflower flowers or French beans and set aside.

Assemble

  1. Place the lettuces in the center of a dish in a heap.

  2. Arrange the salmon in a star shape on top of the lettuces.

  3. Create an outer border with sliced beet root and an inner border with sliced cucumber.

  4. Cross the anchovies over the salmon and distribute the other prepared ingredients as desired.

Serve

  1. Just before serving, garnish with Italian salad sauce.

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. Cucumber + cauliflowertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together584 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  3. Chervil + cauliflowertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together51 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Cabbage + cauliflowertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Cucumber + cherviltop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together144 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

Lettuce
Crisp leaves form the bed and give the salad its body and fresh crunch.
Cucumber
Adds crisp texture and cooling moisture to the salad.
Beet root
Contributes earthy sweetness and a vivid colour to the borders.
Anchovies
Bring salty, savoury depth that balances the mild greens.
Boiled eggs
Yolks add richness and a creamy texture alongside the lettuce.

The step that matters

Add the sauce just before serving. Dressing greens early draws water out of the leaves through osmosis, so they wilt and lose crispness. Adding the sauce at the last moment keeps the lettuce crisp and the colours bright.

Swap the cauliflower

The recipe marks cauliflower as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cabbage, cucumber, tarragon, chervil, egg, lobster, sauce):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, cucumber, tarragon, chervil, egg, lobster, 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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