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Salad

Dutch Salad

A salad of dressed fish, onions, beetroot, and a sauce of oil, vinegar, anchovy, egg yolks, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Tarragon and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,547 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Dutch Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the meat of the dressed fish into shapes and arrange them on a dish.

  2. Place the baked or boiled Spanish onions and boiled beetroot in the center.

Make the sauce

  1. In a bowl, mix the salad oil, Tarragon vinegar, salt, anchovy, hard-boiled egg yolks, common vinegar, cream, essence of ham, Sherry wine, made mustard, and Cayenne pepper until well combined.

Assemble and serve

  1. Pour the sauce over the arranged fish and vegetables.

  2. Serve with fried snippets of bread or pickled barberries around the 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. Tarragon + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,547 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Fish + anchovytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together637 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Onion + tarragontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,568 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Anchovy + eggtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,330 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Hard-boiled egg yolks
Emulsify with the oil and add richness and a smooth, thick body to the sauce.
Salad oil
Provides fat that carries flavour and gives the sauce a smooth, silky texture.
Spanish onions
Add mild sweetness and soft body to the salad as the main vegetable.
Beet root
Adds earthy sweetness and a vivid colour to the dish.
Anchovy
Adds deep savoury, salty flavour that enriches the sauce.
Tarragon vinegar
Adds bright acidity and a light aromatic note that cuts the richness of the oil and yolks.

The step that matters

Mixing the sauce until well combined. The oil must be blended thoroughly with the egg yolks, mustard and vinegars so the sauce emulsifies into a smooth, cohesive dressing. If it is only stirred briefly, the oil can separate and pool on the fish and vegetables instead of coating them evenly.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, tarragon, vinegar, anchovy, egg, cream, ham):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, tarragon, vinegar, anchovy, egg, cream, ham. 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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