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Salad

German Salad

A salad of boiled potatoes and cold fish dressed with vinegar, sweet oil, herbs, and cayenne pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Tarragon and chervil match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 824 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

German Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the potatoes in salted water until tender, then let them cool.

  2. Slice the cooled potatoes into thin rounds.

  3. Slice any leftover cold fish into pieces.

Dress and rest

  1. In a bowl, combine the vinegar, sweet oil, salt, cayenne pepper, tarragon, chervil, and burnet. Mix the sauce well and pour it over the potatoes and fish in a basin.

  2. Let the salad sit for 2 to 3 hours.

Serve

  1. Serve the salad by alternating layers of fish and potatoes, drizzling more sauce on top.

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. Tarragon + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together824 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Pepper + tarragontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Potato + cherviltop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together96 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Vinegar + tarragontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,547 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 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

Potatoes
Form the bulk of the salad and absorb the vinegar dressing as they rest.
Cold fish
Provides the main protein and flaky texture in the layered salad.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dish and balances the oil.
Sweet oil
Carries the herbs and spices and adds richness and moisture to the salad.

The step that matters

Let the salad sit for 2 to 3 hours. Resting lets the acidic dressing soak into the warm-cooled potato slices and fish, seasoning them evenly through rather than just coating the surface.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, vinegar, pepper, tarragon, chervil):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, vinegar, pepper, tarragon, chervil. 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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