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Salad

Swedish Salad

A salad of roast beef, potatoes, apples, herring, anchovies, gherkins, capers, herbs, egg, olives, dressed with oil and vinegar, topped with oysters.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Tarragon and chervil match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 824 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Swedish Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mix together equal quantities of cold roast beef, boiled potatoes, russet apples, and pickled herring in a bowl.

  2. Soak the anchovies in water, drain them, and chop them.

Dress the salad

  1. Add the chopped anchovies to the mixture.

  2. Add chopped gherkins, capers, tarragon, chervil, hard-boiled egg, and olives.

  3. Pour oil and vinegar over the salad.

  4. Season with salt and pepper.

Serve

  1. Serve in a salad bowl topped with freshly opened oysters.

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 + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together824 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Capers + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together135 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Capers + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together379 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Potato + cherviltop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together96 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold roast beef
Supplies the main meaty body of the salad.
Boiled potatoes
Adds starchy bulk and a soft, tender texture.
Russet apples
Add crisp texture and a touch of sweetness that balances the salt.
Pickled herring
Brings salty, sour flavour that gives the salad its character.
Anchovies
Add concentrated savoury saltiness that deepens the overall flavour.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dish and cuts the richness of the oil.

Swap the apple

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

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

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