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Russian Salad

A cold salad of herring, anchovies, smoked salmon, optional meats, pickled cucumbers, capers, olives, mayonnaise, lettuce, and hard‑boiled eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Russian Salad

Why it works: Capers and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 372 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Russian Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the herrings in water for 24 hours, then skin and remove all bones, cutting them into small pieces.

  2. Add the anchovies, smoked salmon (or lobster), and any cold roast turkey, chicken, or veal if desired.

Assemble and serve

  1. Incorporate a generous amount of pickled cucumbers, capers, and olives.

  2. Prepare a rich mayonnaise dressing and pour it over the mixture.

  3. Line a salad bowl with fresh lettuce leaves, fill it with the salad, and garnish with hard-boiled eggs.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Capers + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together372 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Cucumber + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,409 recipes

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

  3. Cucumber + caperstop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together303 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Capers + olivetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,688 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Olive + lettucetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,580 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Herrings
Form the main body of the salad, providing the flesh and savoury flavour once soaked and boned.
Anchovies
Add a salty, savoury depth that seasons the whole salad.
Smoked salmon
Contributes smoky flavour and a tender, flaky texture to the mixture.
Pickled cucumbers
Add acidity and crunch that cut through the richness of the dressing.
Mayonnaise dressing
Adds fat and creaminess, binding the pieces together and moistening them.

The step that matters

Soaking the herrings. Soaking for a full 24 hours draws out excess salt and brine from the fish, so the salad is not overly salty. Boning carefully matters because stray bones are hard to detect once the salad is mixed.

Swap the lettuce

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, turkey, cucumber, capers, olive, egg):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Shallotfits about as well
  3. Lettucethe original
  4. Welsh onionfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, turkey, cucumber, capers, olive, 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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