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Salad

Herring Salad

A salad of herring, potatoes, beets, onions, apples, veal, eggs, dressed with oil, vinegar, stock, pepper, mustard, and optional sour cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 ↓

Herring Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the herrings overnight, then cut them into small pieces.

  2. Cook and peel the potatoes, then let them cool before chopping.

  3. Chop the cooked red beets, onions, sour apples, and hard-boiled eggs.

Assemble and dress

  1. In a large bowl, combine the chopped ingredients with the roasted veal.

  2. In a separate bowl, mix the sweet oil, vinegar, stock, pepper, and mustard to taste.

  3. Pour the sauce over the salad mixture and stir to combine.

Rest

  1. For best flavor, let the salad sit overnight in an earthen 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. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  3. Potato + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,340 recipes

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

  4. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

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 flavor and the salad's tender, flaked texture.
Potatoes
Add body and bulk, soaking up dressing so the salad holds together.
Sweet oil
Carries flavor and gives the dressing richness and a smooth mouthfeel.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavors and balances the fat and fish.
Sour apples
Contribute tart acidity and a crisp contrast to the soft ingredients.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add creamy richness and a firm, soft texture to the mixture.

The step that matters

Resting overnight. Time lets the vinegar, oil, and seasonings penetrate the chopped ingredients and blend the flavors, so the salad tastes more cohesive than when freshly mixed.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Avocadofits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, onion, veal, egg, vinegar, pepper, mustard. 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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