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Russian Salad

A chilled salad of boiled vegetables, spinach, biscuits, and a creamy mustard sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Russian Salad

Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Russian Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Cut the vegetables into pieces about the size of a raisin.

  2. Boil the vegetables in water with salt, then drain and sauté in butter.

Make the sauce

  1. Whip the egg yolks, then add olive oil and mustard flour to make a sauce.

  2. Pound the spinach, squeeze through a cloth, and mix with water.

  3. Heat the spinach liquid until it boils, then strain through a silk tamis.

  4. Mix the strained spinach with soaked biscuits and a little butter, then strain again.

  5. Combine this mixture with the sauce and add cream.

Assemble and set

  1. Stir in the sautéed vegetables and gelatine.

  2. Pour into a mold and refrigerate until set.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Turnip + beanstop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together400 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 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

Egg yolks
Emulsify with olive oil and mustard flour to form the body of the sauce.
Olive oil
Provides fat and richness that carries the flavour of the sauce.
Gelatine
Sets the mixture so it holds its shape when chilled in a mold.
Cream
Adds fat and smoothness, giving the sauce a softer, richer texture.
Unsweetened biscuits
Soaked and strained, they thicken and add body to the sauce.
Mixed vegetables
Form the bulk of the salad, adding texture and substance.

The step that matters

Heat the spinach liquid until it boils, then strain through a silk tamis. Boiling and straining removes fibrous and solid particles, leaving a smooth liquid that will not spoil the texture of the set salad.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, potato, turnip, celery, beans, olive, butter):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, potato, turnip, celery, beans, olive, butter. 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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