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Salad

Lennie's Tarragon Orange Salad

A romaine lettuce salad with tarragon vinaigrette, mandarin oranges, almonds, and green onions.

From the Recipes Wiki (Fandom) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and tarragon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and 573 recipes mention both. Both carry methyleugenol, which smells clove, spice. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: egg, tree nuts (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. First, make salad dressing; you can do this in advance.

  2. Combine sugar, tarragon, tabasco, pepper, egg yolks and mustard in a food processor.

  3. With the machine running, gradually add vinegar.

  4. Then, with the machine still running, add the oils in a thin stream.

  5. Process until well blended and creamy; taste and add salt if desired.

  6. Keep refrigerated.

  7. Should be enough dressing to make two or three salads; remember this when looking at nutritional analysis of this recipe.

Assemble the salad

  1. To make salad, tear cleaned romaine into bite-sized pieces; place in a large salad bowl along with sliced green onions.

  2. Toast almonds (I prefer flaked) and set aside until cool.

  3. Drain oranges well and place half in with lettuce and onions.

  4. Toss well with dressing (about 1/3 of the Salad Dressing recipe, or to your taste).

  5. Sprinkle top of salad with remaining oranges and the toasted almonds; serve.

Store leftovers

  1. Leftover dressing keeps well in the fridge for about a week.

Recipe from the Recipes Wiki (Fandom).

This recipe comes from the Recipes Wiki on Fandom and is licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Our formatting and summaries are shared under the same licence.

Steps grouped into stages for easier reading; the method is the source's own.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Mustard + tarragontop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together573 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  2. Tarragon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,691 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Mustard + vinegartop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Tarragon + vinegartop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together1,299 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Mustard + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together15,427 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

Mustard and vinegar share little aroma chemistry, yet 14,067 recipes mention both: they likely work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Emulsify the oil and vinegar into a thick, creamy dressing.
Canola oil
Provides fat for a smooth, creamy dressing body.
Olive oil
Adds fat and a richer flavor to the creamy dressing.
Tarragon vinegar
Adds acidity and tangy tarragon flavor to the dressing.
Sugar
Balances the acidity of the vinegar with gentle sweetness.
Mandarin oranges
Add juicy sweetness and brightness to the salad.

The step that matters

Adding the oils in a thin stream. Adding oil slowly while the processor runs lets the egg yolks emulsify it into the vinegar. Pouring too fast can break the dressing so it separates and stays thin instead of creamy.

Flavor stand-ins for the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, sauce, tarragon, egg, pepper, vinegar, canola oil):

  1. Capsicumabout as good a flavor fit
  2. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, sauce, tarragon, egg, pepper, vinegar, canola oil. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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