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Egg or Fish Salad

A layered salad of sliced potatoes, eggs, onion, and a dressing of egg yolk, mustard, sweet cream, vinegar, and beaten egg white.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Egg or Fish Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Layer the salad

  1. In a glass bowl or salad dish, layer the sliced potatoes.

  2. Add a layer of sliced eggs.

  3. Sprinkle with chopped onion, salt, and pepper.

Make the dressing

  1. In a separate bowl, combine the egg yolk and mustard.

  2. Slowly beat in the sweet cream, drop by drop.

  3. Add the vinegar.

  4. Fold in the beaten egg white.

Serve

  1. Pour the dressing over the salad before serving.

  2. For a fish salad, substitute or add flakes of cold boiled salmon, cod, or halibut.

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. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  3. Potato + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,340 recipes

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

  4. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolk
Emulsifies the cream and vinegar into a smooth, thick dressing.
Sweet cream
Adds richness and moisture, giving the dressing a smooth texture.
Egg white
Beaten to stiff froth, it lightens the dressing and adds airiness.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the rich dressing and balances its fat.
Potatoes
Provide the starchy body of the salad, holding the layers together.

The step that matters

Beat in the sweet cream drop by drop. Adding cream slowly lets the egg yolk emulsify it gradually. Adding it too fast can break the dressing so it stays runny or separates.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, egg, pepper, mustard, cream, vinegar, salmon):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, egg, pepper, mustard, cream, vinegar, salmon. 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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