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Vegetable Salad, Russian Style

A cold salad of boiled celery or celeriac, potatoes, gherkins, apple, capers, anchovies, seasoned with pepper, salt, oil, vinegar, horseradish, mustard, and mayonnaise.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Horseradish and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,832 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Vegetable Salad, Russian Style

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Cook the celery or celeriac and potatoes until tender, then cool them.

  2. Trim and slice the cooled vegetables finely.

Combine and season

  1. In a bowl, combine the sliced vegetables with gherkins, apple, capers, and anchovies.

  2. Season with pepper, coarse sea salt, oil, and vinegar.

  3. Add grated horseradish and mustard, then mix gently.

  4. Set aside for 30 minutes.

  5. Drain off excess moisture.

Dress and serve

  1. Dress the salad in a bowl with mayonnaise dressing.

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. Horseradish + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Capers + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together624 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Capers + horseradishtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together82 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Provide starchy body so the salad holds its shape when sliced and mixed.
Celery or celeriac
Adds crisp texture and a mild, fresh vegetable flavour to the salad.
Capers
Add sharp, salty acidity that cuts through the richness of the mayonnaise.
Anchovies
Contribute a deep, savoury saltiness that rounds out the dressing.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the vegetables and balances the richness of the dressing.
Horseradish
Adds a sharp, pungent heat that gives the salad its bite.

The step that matters

Drain off excess moisture. Cooked vegetables and sliced gherkins release water that thins the dressing and makes the salad soggy. Draining before dressing keeps the mayonnaise thick and the texture firm.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (celery, potato, capers, pepper, vinegar, horseradish, mustard):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Lemonfits better
  3. Avocadofits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, potato, capers, pepper, vinegar, horseradish, mustard. 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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