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Salad

Italian Salad

A salad of herring, beetroot, potatoes, mustard, oil, vinegar, capers, and optional vegetables.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and capers match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 624 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Italian Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the herring

  1. Wash the herring in cold water and soak it in milk for 1 hour.

  2. Cut it open, remove the bone, and slice the fish and meat.

Assemble and dress

  1. Arrange the fish and meat in a bowl, chop the capers, and sprinkle them over.

  2. In a basin, mix the mustard, oil, and vinegar gradually.

  3. Pour the dressing over the fish and meat, then cover with slices of cold potatoes.

  4. Garnish with any cold vegetables, green pickles, chopped parsley, and small radishes.

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. Mustard + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together624 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Tarragon + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together379 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Beetroot + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together184 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Mustard + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together901 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Salt herring
Forms the main body of the salad and supplies its savoury, salty flavour.
Oil
Carries fat into the dressing, adding richness and a smooth mouthfeel.
Tarragon vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the fish's richness.
Mustard
Emulsifies with the oil and vinegar and adds a sharp, pungent bite.
Capers
Add briny, acidic bursts of flavour that cut through the fish and oil.
Boiled potatoes
Provide starchy body and a mild, soft texture that softens the salad's saltiness.

The step that matters

Soaking the salt herring in milk. Salt herring is very salty, and soaking draws out surplus salt so the fish stays flavourful rather than overpowering. Under-soaking leaves the dish too salty to balance with the dressing.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mustard, beetroot, tarragon, vinegar, capers):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against mustard, beetroot, tarragon, vinegar, capers. 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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