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Salad

Mixed Vegetable Salad, Swedish Style

A salad of cooked carrots, beets and potatoes mixed with smoked beef tongue, pickled herring and apple.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Mixed Vegetable Salad, Swedish Style

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the salad

  1. Cut the cooked carrots, beets, and potatoes into small pieces using a fancy cutter.

  2. In a bowl, combine the cut vegetables with smoked beef tongue, pickled herring, and apple.

  3. Season the mixture with salt, pepper, oil, and vinegar.

  4. Add finely chopped parsley, chervil, and mustard dressing, then mix well.

Serve

  1. Arrange the salad in a bowl and garnish with stoned olives and boned anchovies.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Parsley + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together774 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Carrot + potatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  5. Carrot + cherviltop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together355 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Cooked young carrots
Provides bulk, sweetness and a firm, colourful texture in the salad.
Cooked beets
Adds earthy sweetness and a deep colour that tints the whole salad.
Cooked potatoes
Adds starchy body that holds the salad together and soaks up the dressing.
Smoked beef tongue
Contributes savoury, smoky meatiness and a tender texture.
Pickled herring
Adds salty, acidic richness and a soft, oily bite.
Apple
Adds crisp texture and a fresh, mild sweetness that balances the savoury meats.

The step that matters

Season and mix the salad before adding the herbs. Dressing and seasoning need to be worked evenly through the cut vegetables and meats. Adding the delicate herbs and mustard dressing last, and mixing gently, keeps the herbs bright and prevents the soft potato and apple pieces from breaking down into a mash.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, potato, beef, pepper, vinegar, parsley, chervil):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, potato, beef, pepper, vinegar, parsley, chervil. 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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