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Russian Salad

A cold salad of boiled vegetables, eggs, and a creamy mustard‑oil sauce, topped with gelatin‑set biscuits.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 and spinach base

  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 fine sieve.

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

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

Assemble and set

  1. Fold 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 to form the sauce and add richness and body.
Olive oil
Provides fat and silky texture when emulsified into the yolk sauce.
Gelatine
Sets the mixture so it holds its shape when chilled.
Cream
Adds fat and a smooth, rich texture to the sauce.
Butter
Adds fat and flavor to the vegetables and biscuit mixture.
Sugar-free biscuits
Soaked until soft, they thicken and bind the spinach base.

The step that matters

Pour into a mold and refrigerate until set. Gelatine needs to be fully dissolved and evenly mixed before chilling. Gelatine sets only when cold, so the mixture must be cool enough to hold its shape without separating.

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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