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Potato Salad, with Aspic Jelly, Chaeteeuse

A chilled potato salad layered with aspic jelly, egg whites, capers, olives, sardines, and mayonnaise.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Capers and olive match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,688 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Potato Salad, with Aspic Jelly, Chaeteeuse

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the potatoes

  1. Boil the potatoes until thoroughly cooked.

  2. Cool the boiled potatoes.

  3. Trim the potatoes into pieces about ½ inch thick, then cut the trimmed pieces with a round cutter.

  4. Place the pieces on a napkin.

  5. Prepare a pan with broken ice.

Line the mould

  1. Line a mould with Aspic jelly.

  2. Decorate the bottom of the mould with egg whites, capers, and olives.

  3. Dip the potato pieces in Aspic jelly.

  4. Arrange the dipped potato pieces closely around the inside of the mould.

  5. Line the inside again with Aspic jelly to fill any gaps.

  6. Layer sliced hard boiled eggs, beef tongue, and capers in the bottom of the mould.

  7. Pour a little Aspic jelly over the layer to firm it up.

Make the salad and fill the mould

  1. Cut cold boiled potatoes into thin square pieces.

  2. Place the cut pieces in a salad bowl.

  3. Add one-quarter of the quantity of boned sardines and a few capers.

  4. Make a mayonnaise dressing with Aspic jelly.

  5. Mix the dressing quickly with the potatoes before it hardens.

  6. Fill the mould with the potato mixture.

  7. Smooth the surface.

  8. Keep it cool until ready to serve.

Unmould and serve

  1. Dip the mould in lukewarm water.

  2. Dry the mould.

  3. Turn it over onto a dish.

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. Capers + olivetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,688 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Potato + olivetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,458 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  3. Potato + beeftop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  4. Potato + caperstop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together224 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Olive + beeftop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,220 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Form the firm body of the salad, holding their shape when cut and set in jelly.
Aspic jelly
Sets the dish into a firm, sliceable mass and binds the potatoes and dressing together.
Whites of hard boiled eggs
Add a mild, firm texture and a pale contrast to the decorated surface.
Beef tongue
Adds savoury meat flavour and a tender texture in the layered base.
Boned sardines
Contribute a rich, salty, oily flavour that stands out against the mild potatoes.
Mayonnaise dressing
Adds fat and creaminess, giving the salad moisture and a smooth richness.

The step that matters

Mix the dressing quickly with the potatoes before it hardens. Aspic jelly sets as it cools, so if it firms before the potatoes are coated, the dressing will clump instead of spreading evenly through the salad.

Swap the capers

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, egg, olive, beef):

  1. Rosemaryfits better
  2. Garlicfits about as well
  3. Parsleyfits about as well
  4. Capersthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, egg, olive, beef. 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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