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Salad

Salade a Lachinoisb

A French salad of sliced potatoes, truffles, oysters, lettuce, anchovy fillets, and mayonnaise, seasoned with wine, herbs, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and 2,855 recipes mention both. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: egg, fish, shellfish (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the potatoes into strips and shred the truffles finely.

  2. Blanch, drain, and remove the gills from the oysters.

  3. Wash and trim the lettuces, reserving a few crisp leaves for garnish.

Combine and season

  1. Combine the potatoes, truffles, and halved oysters in a bowl.

  2. Season with salt and pepper.

  3. Add the chopped herbs.

  4. Moisten with the wine.

  5. Let it stand for one hour, mixing occasionally.

  6. Pour off a little of the moisture.

Dress and serve

  1. Add the lettuce leaves.

  2. Mix with mayonnaise.

  3. Transfer to a salad bowl.

  4. Garnish with reserved lettuce leaves and anchovy fillets.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Potato + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,855 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Cabbage + lettucetop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together622 recipes

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

  3. Oyster + anchovytop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Potato + lettucetop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together322 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  5. Lettuce + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,483 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

Potatoes
Provide the bulk and body of the salad, holding their shape as strips.
Oysters
Supply the salty, briny flavour that is the salad's main character.
Truffles
Add a strong, earthy aroma that perfumes the whole salad.
Mayonnaise
Adds fat and creaminess, binding the salad and coating every ingredient.
Cabbage lettuces
Contribute crisp leaves and a fresh, crunchy texture to the salad.
Dry white wine
Moistens the mixture and adds acidity that brightens the flavours.

The step that matters

Pour off a little of the moisture. Excess liquid left after standing would thin the mayonnaise and make the salad watery, so it must be drained before dressing.

Flavor stand-ins for the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, truffle, oyster, lettuce, anchovy, white wine, parsley):

  1. Asparagusbetter flavor fit
  2. Shallotbetter flavor fit
  3. Tomatobetter flavor fit
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, truffle, oyster, lettuce, anchovy, white wine, parsley. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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