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Salad

Australian Salad

A salad of lettuce, radishes, spring onions, tomatoes, herbs, hard‑boiled eggs, steamed potato, coconut, almonds, and a creamy mustard‑curry dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
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Why it works: Lettuce and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,356 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Australian Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop lettuce, radishes, spring onions, mustard and cress, tomatoes, parsley, thyme, and the whites of the hard-boiled eggs.

Make the dressing

  1. In a bowl, beat the yolks of the hard-boiled eggs with the steamed potato until smooth.

  2. Add grated coconut, shredded almonds, mustard, curry powder, pepper, coarse sea salt, cream, and vinegar to the egg mixture and mix well.

Assemble and serve

  1. Pour the dressing over the salad and toss gently with two large forks for 10 minutes.

  2. Add the dressing just before serving.

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. Lettuce + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,356 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Radish + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together297 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Lettuce + radishtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together58 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Mustard + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together913 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Hard-boiled egg yolks
Mashed into the dressing, they give it a smooth, rich body.
Steamed potato
Blended with the yolks to thicken the dressing and add a creamy texture.
Cream
Adds fat and richness, softening the sharpness of the vinegar and mustard.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the cream and yolks.
Sweet almonds
Add crunch and a mild nutty sweetness to the salad.

The step that matters

Add the dressing just before serving. Acid from the vinegar and salt draw water out of leafy greens and radishes, so they wilt and turn soggy if dressed too early. Dressing at the last moment keeps the vegetables crisp.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lettuce, radish, onion, mustard, parsley, thyme, egg):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Horseradishfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lettuce, radish, onion, mustard, parsley, thyme, 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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