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Potato Salad, with Aspic Jelly, Chartreuse

A chilled potato salad assembled in a mold with aspic jelly, capers, olives, and sliced beef tongue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Capers and olive match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,688 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Potato Salad, with Aspic Jelly, Chartreuse

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the potatoes

  1. Boil the potatoes until thoroughly cooked.

  2. Cool the boiled potatoes.

  3. Trim the potatoes into pieces about ½ inch thick.

  4. Cut the trimmed pieces with a round cutter.

  5. Place the potato pieces on a napkin.

Line the mold

  1. Fill a pan with broken ice.

  2. Place the mold in the ice.

  3. Line the mold with Aspic jelly.

  4. Decorate the bottom with egg whites, capers, and olives.

  5. Dip the potato pieces in Aspic jelly.

  6. Arrange the dipped pieces closely around the inside of the mold.

  7. Line the inside again with Aspic jelly to fill the gaps.

  8. Slice hard boiled eggs.

  9. Place the sliced eggs over the rosette in the mold.

  10. Add thin slices of beef tongue.

  11. Add some capers.

  12. Pour a little Aspic jelly over the beef and capers.

Make the salad and fill the mold

  1. Cut cold boiled potatoes into thin square pieces.

  2. Place the cut pieces in a salad bowl.

  3. Add ¼ of the quantity of boned sardines.

  4. Add a few capers.

  5. Make a mayonnaise dressing with Aspic jelly.

  6. Mix the dressing with the potatoes quickly.

  7. Fill the mold with the potato mixture.

  8. Smooth the surface.

  9. Keep the mold in a cool place until ready to serve.

Serve

  1. Dip the mold in lukewarm water.

  2. Dry the mold.

  3. Turn the mold over onto a dish.

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. Capers + olivetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,688 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  3. Potato + beeftop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  4. Potato + caperstop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together224 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Olive + beeftop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,220 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Provide the firm body of the salad, holding their shape once cooked and cut.
Aspic jelly
Sets into a clear gel that binds the potatoes and coats the mold surface.
Whites of hard boiled eggs
Add a firm, mild contrast in colour and texture to the decorated surface.
Beef tongue
Adds savoury meat flavour and a tender layer within the set gel.
Boned sardines
Add a rich, salty, savoury flavour to the salad.
Mayonnaise dressing
Adds fat and creaminess that coats the potatoes and softens the set gel.

The step that matters

Keep the mold in ice while lining it. Aspic jelly is a gelatin-based liquid that sets as it cools. Cold keeps it firm so the layers and decorations stay in place rather than sliding or blurring before the mold is filled.

Swap the capers

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

  1. Rosemaryfits better
  2. Garlicfits about as well
  3. Parsleyfits about as well
  4. Capersthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, egg, olive, beef. 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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