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Salad

Dutch Salad

A salad of anchovies, herring, sausage or smoked ham, veal, cucumbers, potatoes, capers, eggs, olives, dressed with oil, tarragon vinegar, white pepper, and French mustard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Capers and tarragon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 379 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Dutch Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Wash the anchovies, split them, bone them, and roll each anchovy up.

  2. Wash the herring, split it, bone it, and cut it into small pieces.

Prepare the salad base

  1. Cut the Bologna or Lyons sausage (or smoked ham) into small dice.

  2. Cut the cold roast fowl (or veal) into small dice.

  3. Dice the beet-roots and pickled cucumbers in equal quantity.

  4. Cut the cold boiled potatoes into larger dice, using at least three times as much potato as any other ingredient.

Assemble and serve

  1. Add the capers, the minced yolks and whites of hard-boiled eggs, and the stoned olives.

  2. Mix all ingredients well.

  3. Reserve the olives and anchovies for garnish.

  4. Beat together oil, Tarragon vinegar, white pepper, and French mustard to taste.

  5. Pour the dressing over the salad.

  6. Serve.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Cucumber + caperstop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together303 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Cucumber + tarragontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together274 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Cucumber + olivetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Make up the bulk of the salad, giving body while the diced meats and vegetables add texture.
Hard-boiled eggs
Yolks and whites add rich body and a soft, mellow texture to the salad.
Anchovies
Contribute a salty, savoury depth that flavours the whole salad.
Oil
Forms the base of the dressing, adding richness and carrying the flavours together.
Tarragon vinegar
Adds acidity to the dressing, balancing the richness of the oil and eggs.
French mustard
Adds sharpness and aroma to the dressing, helping it emulsify with the oil.

The step that matters

Dressing the salad. Dressing should be beaten to taste just before pouring, so the emulsion stays cohesive and the acid and mustard are balanced against the oil and richness of the eggs and meats.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, veal, cucumber, capers, egg, olive, tarragon):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Lettucefits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, veal, cucumber, capers, egg, olive, tarragon. 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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