Skip to main content
Salad

Herrings a LA Russe

A cold salad of sliced salted herring and boiled potatoes, dressed with oil, vinegar, and herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Chervil and tarragon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 795 recipes mention both. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: fish (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the salted herring fillets into thin slices.

Assemble and serve

  1. Arrange the herring slices and cold boiled potato slices in alternating rows on a serving dish.

  2. Drizzle with oil and vinegar.

  3. Top with chopped chervil, fennel, tarragon, and shallots.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Chervil + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together795 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Fennel + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together132 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

  3. Chervil + shallottop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together266 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Tarragon + shallottop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together492 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Chervil + fenneltop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together67 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Salted herring fillets
Provides the main savory, salty flavor and the fish that defines the salad.
Cold boiled potatoes
Adds body and a mild starchy base that soaks up the dressing.
Oil
Adds richness and carries flavor across the herring and potatoes.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the salty fish and balances the oil.
Chopped shallots
Adds sharp, mild onion aroma that cuts through the fish.

Flavor stand-ins for the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, chervil, fennel, tarragon, shallot):

  1. Chivebetter flavor fit
  2. Mustardbetter flavor fit
  3. Lettucebetter flavor fit
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, chervil, fennel, tarragon, shallot. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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

Illustration of Chicken SaladIllustrationChicken Salad623 recipesIllustration of Salad DressingIllustrationSalad Dressing491 recipesIllustration of Tomato SaladIllustrationTomato Salad179 recipesIllustration of Cold SlawIllustrationCold Slaw160 recipes