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Herring Salad

A salad of diced herring, pickled cucumbers, apples, boiled potatoes, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,281 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Herring Salad

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the herring

  1. Soak the herrings in water for 4 to 6 hours, changing the water frequently.

  2. Remove the skin from the herrings and cut them into small dice.

  3. Pour vinegar and 3 tablespoons of water over the diced herrings.

Prepare the vegetables and fruit

  1. Peel the potatoes, apples, and pickled cucumbers, then cut them into dice.

Combine and season

  1. Mix all the diced ingredients with salad oil, vinegar, German mustard, ground ginger, and chopped onion.

  2. Sprinkle with pepper.

  3. Add sugar if desired.

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. Cucumber + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,281 recipes

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

  2. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  3. Mustard + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  4. Mustard + potatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,340 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Herrings (in the method)
Form the main body of the salad as its flavourful protein.
Apples
Add crisp texture and a mild sweetness that balances the sharp vinegar.
Pickled cucumbers
Contribute crunch and acidity that brighten the salad.
Boiled potatoes
Add starchy body and soft texture that bulks out the dice.
Salad oil
Provides fat and moisture that carry the flavours and coat the pieces.

The step that matters

Soaking the herrings. Soaking draws out excess salt and brine from the preserved fish. Under-soaking leaves the salad harshly salty, while the water should be changed often so the soaking liquid does not reabsorb the salt.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cucumber, mustard, pepper, ginger, onion, potato, vinegar):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Avocadofits better
  3. Cherryfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cucumber, mustard, pepper, ginger, onion, potato, vinegar. 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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