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Salad

Dutch Salad

A salad of anchovies, herring, sausage or ham, roast fowl or veal, beetroot, pickled cucumbers, potatoes, olives, and a vinaigrette.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Beetroot and capers match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 231 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Dutch Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Wash, split, and bone the anchovies and roll each one up.

  2. Wash, split, and bone the herring, then cut it into small pieces.

Prepare the salad

  1. Cut the Bologna or Lyons sausage (or smoked ham) into small dice.

  2. Cut the cold roast fowl or veal into small dice.

  3. Cut the beetroot into small dice.

  4. Cut the pickled cucumbers into small dice.

  5. Cut the cold boiled potatoes into small dice.

  6. Mix all ingredients together.

  7. Reserve the olives and anchovies for garnish.

Dress and serve

  1. Beat together oil, Tarragon vinegar, white pepper, and French mustard to taste.

  2. Pour the dressing over the salad.

  3. Serve.

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. Beetroot + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together231 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Beetroot + cucumbertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together345 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Cucumber + caperstop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together303 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Beetroot + potatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together330 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold boiled potatoes
Form the bulk of the salad, adding body and a mild starchy base for the other ingredients.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add richness and a firm, crumbly texture when yolks and whites are minced separately.
Herring
Provides the main savoury fish flavour and a firm, flaky texture.
Anchovies
Contribute a salty, savoury depth that seasons the whole salad.
Beetroot
Adds sweetness, earthy flavour and a vivid colour.
Oil
Carries flavour and gives the dressing a smooth, rich body.

The step that matters

Beating the dressing. Oil and vinegar separate unless beaten vigorously, and the mustard helps emulsify them. A well-emulsified dressing coats the diced ingredients evenly instead of pooling at the bottom of the bowl.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, veal, beetroot, cucumber, capers, egg, olive):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, veal, beetroot, cucumber, capers, egg, olive. 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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