Skip to main content
Salad

Norwegian Salad

A salad of diced chicken, tongue, herring, potatoes, string beans, carrots, dressed with French dressing, served on lettuce or watercress.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Beans and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 500 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Norwegian Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Combine the chicken, tongue, herring, potatoes, string beans, and carrots in a bowl.

  2. Mix thoroughly and add a generous amount of French dressing.

  3. Toss gently for 10 to 15 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve on a bed of lettuce or watercress and pass mayonnaise on the side.

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. Beans + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together500 recipes

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

  2. Potato + carrottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

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

  3. Beans + carrottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,443 recipes

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

  4. Potato + beanstop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together655 recipes

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

  5. Carrot + lettucetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together976 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cooked chicken
Provides the main protein and bulk of the salad.
Boiled potatoes
Add starchy body and soft texture that absorbs some of the dressing.
Smoked herring
Adds a salty, smoky flavour that stands out against the mild ingredients.
Boiled string beans
Add a tender texture and mild, green flavour.
Mayonnaise
Adds richness and fat, mellowing the acidity of the French dressing.

The step that matters

Toss gently for 10 to 15 minutes. Tossing too roughly breaks up the soft boiled potatoes and beans, turning the salad mushy. Gentle folding coats the pieces evenly with dressing while keeping their shape and texture.

Swap the lettuce

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, potato, beans, carrot):

  1. Tomatofits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, potato, beans, carrot. 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.

You might also like

Chicken SaladChicken Salad623 recipesCarrot SaladCarrot Salad24 recipesSalad DressingSalad Dressing491 recipesTomato SaladTomato Salad179 recipes