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Salad

Salad Caviar

A salad of crisp lettuce topped with hard boiled egg, caviar, canned shrimps, and a mayonnaise dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lettuce and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,559 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Salad Caviar

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the platter

  1. Garnish each dish with crisp lettuce leaves in the center.

  2. Place a slice of hard boiled egg around the lettuce.

  3. Add a layer of caviar on top of the egg.

  4. Surround the caviar with a layer of canned shrimps.

  5. Cool the eggs and platter in the refrigerator.

Make the mayonnaise dressing

  1. Break the yolks of 3 eggs onto a platter.

  2. Slowly add the oil, a few drops at a time, while beating with a fork until thickened.

  3. If it doesn't thicken, add a pinch of salt.

  4. Continue beating.

  5. If it still doesn't thicken, add another yolk.

  6. If too much oil is added, incorporate it gradually.

  7. Once thick, thin the dressing with a little lemon juice.

  8. Continue adding lemon and oil alternately until finished.

  9. If desired, add ½ cup of cream to make the dressing thinner and whiter.

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. Lettuce + lemontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,559 recipes

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

  2. Egg + caviartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together101 recipes

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

  3. Lettuce + shrimptop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together430 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  4. Caviar + shrimptop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Shrimp + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,923 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Egg yolks emulsify the oil, giving the dressing its thick, stable body.
Oil
Forms the fat phase of the emulsion, giving the dressing richness and body.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and helps keep the emulsion stable.
Cream
Thins the dressing and makes it paler and lighter in texture.

The step that matters

Adding the oil slowly to the yolks. Oil must be dispersed a few drops at a time while beating, so the yolk lecithin can surround the droplets. Adding it too fast breaks the emulsion and the dressing stays thin or separates.

Swap the lettuce

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, caviar, shrimp, lemon, cream):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, caviar, shrimp, lemon, cream. 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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