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Salad

Potato Salad with Herring

A cold salad of boiled potatoes, hard‑boiled eggs, and cubed herring, dressed with a vinegar‑lard sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Potato Salad with Herring

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the boiled potatoes.

  2. Remove bones from the herrings and cut them into cubes.

  3. Mix the potatoes and herring together.

Make the dressing and serve

  1. In a saucepan, bring the vinegar, lard, salt, pepper, chopped onion, and water to a boil.

  2. Pour the hot mixture over the salad and serve cold.

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. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Form the body of the salad and soak up the hot dressing.
Salt herrings
Provide the main savoury, salty flavour and the fish element of the salad.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and balances the fat and salt.
Lard
Adds fat that gives the dressing richness and a smoother mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Pour the hot mixture over the salad. The dressing must be boiling hot so the warm potatoes absorb it while still porous. Pouring it over cold potatoes leaves the salad flat and under-seasoned.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, egg, pepper, 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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