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Salad

Herring Salad

A salad of pickled herring, boiled potatoes, onions, and beets dressed with a mustard‑vinegar‑egg yolk sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Herring Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the herring

  1. Wash the herring in cold water, scale, skin, and remove heads and insides, then wash the herring again.

  2. Dry the herring.

  3. Place the herring in a deep dish with enough vinegar to cover and let it sit in the vinegar for 8 hours.

  4. Remove bones from the herring and cut the fish finely.

  5. Place the finely cut fish in a salad dish.

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Boil the potatoes with skins on.

  2. Cool the boiled potatoes, then peel them and cut them into quarters.

  3. Add the quartered potatoes to the fish.

  4. Finely chop the onions.

  5. Dice the beets into ½-inch squares.

  6. Mix the onions and beets with the fish and potatoes.

Make the dressing and serve

  1. Heat the vinegar, mustard, salt, and pepper in a skillet until hot but not boiling.

  2. Beat the egg yolks and olive oil together, then stir in the milk.

  3. Mix the egg-oil-milk mixture into the hot vinegar until thick, but do not boil.

  4. Once the dressing has cooled, combine it with the salad.

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. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  3. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  4. Potato + olivetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,458 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Potato + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,340 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

Herring
Provides the main fish flavour and body, with vinegar firming and sharpening the flesh.
Potatoes
Add bulk and a soft, starchy texture that absorbs some of the dressing.
Egg yolks
Emulsify the oil and milk and thicken the dressing as it heats gently.
Cider vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and partly cures the herring.
Pickled beets
Add sweetness, acidity and a bright colour to the salad.
Olive oil
Adds fat and richness, giving the dressing a smooth, silky body.

The step that matters

Heating the dressing without boiling. Egg yolks thicken as they warm but scramble if they boil. Keeping the mixture hot but below boiling lets it turn thick and smooth rather than curdled.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, cider, vinegar, mustard, pepper, egg, olive):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Horseradishfits better
  3. Broccolifits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, cider, vinegar, mustard, pepper, egg, olive. 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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