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Herring Salad

A salad of herring, veal, ham, potatoes, celery, walnuts, apples, gherkins, onions, eggs, seasoned and dressed with cream, mustard, goose fat, gravies, and stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Herring Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the herring

  1. Soak the herrings in water for 12 hours, changing the water frequently.

  2. Skin, bone, and clean the herrings.

  3. Pass the milts of the herrings through vinegar.

Make the salad

  1. In a bowl, combine the herring, veal, ham, potatoes, celery, walnuts, apples, gherkins, onions, and eggs.

  2. Season the mixture with salt, pepper, and sugar to taste.

  3. Add cream, mustard, melted goose fat, gravies, and stock.

  4. Gently mix everything together without breaking the pieces.

Pack and sterilize

  1. Fill glasses with the salad.

  2. Sterilize for 40 minutes at 212°F (100°C).

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. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Celery + walnuttop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together852 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  3. Potato + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,047 recipes

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

  4. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Celery + appletop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,155 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

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

What each ingredient does

Herrings
Provide the main fish flavour and the body of the salad.
Goose fat
Adds richness and a silky moisture that coats the other ingredients.
Hard boiled eggs
Add body and a creamy richness to the mixture.
Sour apples
Add acidity that balances the fatty fish, meat and fat.
Cream
Adds softness and moisture to the dressing.
Mustard
Adds sharpness that cuts through the richness of the fat.

The step that matters

Gently mix everything together without breaking the pieces. Cut pieces of fish, potato and egg hold their shape only if handled gently. Vigorous stirring breaks them down, turning the salad mushy and giving it an uneven texture.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, ham, potato, celery, walnut, onion, egg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, ham, potato, celery, walnut, onion, egg. 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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