Name: Sardine Salad
Ingredients: 1 large box of sardines; 6 hard boiled eggs; pepper to taste; coarse sea salt to taste; vinegar or mayonnaise for serving

Why it works: Pepper and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and 27,814 recipes mention both. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Sardine Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sardines

Drain the oil from the sardines.
Remove the backbone, tail, and skin from the sardines.

Mix and season

Finely mince the sardines and mix them thoroughly with the chopped hard-boiled eggs.
Season with pepper and coarse sea salt.

Serve

Serve plain with vinegar or mayonnaise.

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.

Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together27,814 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Egg + vinegartop 33% of all pairs

Aroma overlaplow

Mentioned together12,922 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Egg + peppertop 33% of all pairs

Aroma overlaplow

Mentioned together50,580 recipes

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

Egg and vinegar share little aroma chemistry, yet 12,922 recipes mention both: they likely work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Sardines: Provide the main body and rich, savory flavor of the salad.
Hard boiled eggs: Add creamy texture and mild richness that softens the minced fish.

“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.