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Herring Salad

A salad of salt Holland herrings, boiled potatoes, Rhine wine, egg yolks, peppercorns, and optional vinegar or roe.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Wine and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,493 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Herring Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the herring

  1. Soak the herrings in water or milk for 3 hours.

  2. Remove the skin and backbone, then cut the herrings into neat square pieces.

Assemble the salad

  1. Slice the boiled potatoes while hot and place them in a dish.

  2. Pour enough Rhine wine over the potatoes to moisten them.

  3. Once cold, add the herring and chopped yolks of the hard-boiled eggs.

  4. Crush the peppercorns in a napkin with a knife handle, add to the salad, and mix well.

  5. If using milt herring, pound the milt to a paste, moisten with vinegar, and add to the salad.

  6. If using roe herring, soak the roe in vinegar for a few minutes and sprinkle over the salad.

  7. If the herrings have been soaked too long, add a little salt.

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. Wine + vinegartop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,493 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  2. Egg + roetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together243 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Potato + roetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  4. Potato + winetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,207 recipes

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

  5. Potato + vinegartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,608 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Herrings
Provide the main fish flavour and the body of the salad.
Boiled potatoes
Form the bulk of the salad and soak up the wine for moisture.
Rhine wine
Moistens the potatoes and adds acidity and a light fruity note.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Add richness and a creamy texture that binds the salad.
Peppercorns
Add sharp, aromatic heat that cuts the richness of the fish.

The step that matters

Soaking the herring. Salt-cured herring is very salty, so soaking draws out excess salt. Soaking too long leaves the fish bland, which is why the record's note to add a little salt is needed to restore seasoning.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Cucumberfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against wine, egg, vinegar, roe. 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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