Why it works: Mustard and champagne work together. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and 25 recipes mention both. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓
The recipe
Ingredients
Contains: egg (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)
Directions
Prepare the salad
Finely shred the cabbage lettuce, mustard cress, primrose blossoms, and watercress.
Mix with sliced truffles, olives, lemon rings, and capsicums.
Arrange in a salad bowl, using some olives and truffles for decoration.
Create a fringe of light cress around the edge and add small bunches of primrose flowers.
Make the sauce and serve
For the sauce, whisk egg yolks with salt and cayenne, then gradually stir in oil until thick.
Add champagne, spiced white wine vinegar, and the vinegar drops.
Pour the sauce over the salad before serving, or serve it in a cruet.
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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.
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Mustard + champagnetop 16% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together25 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Lettuce + mustardtop 2% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together1,356 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Lettuce + watercresstop 3% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together307 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Olive + capsicumtop 3% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together11,947 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).
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Cabbage + mustardtop 3% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together1,645 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 the oil to form a thick, creamy dressing.
- Oil
- Forms the body of the emulsified sauce with the egg yolks.
- Dry champagne
- Adds acidity and a light, lively flavour to the thinned sauce.
- Spiced white wine vinegar
- Provides sharp acidity and aromatic flavour to the sauce.
The step that matters
Adding the oil to the egg yolks. Oil must be added slowly while whisking so the yolks can emulsify it. Adding it too fast can break the sauce, leaving it oily and thin instead of thick.
Flavor stand-ins for the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cabbage, lettuce, mustard, watercress, truffle, olive, capsicum):
- Avocadobetter flavor fit
- Limebetter flavor fit
- Lemonthe original
- Orangeabout as good a flavor fit
Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, lettuce, mustard, watercress, truffle, olive, capsicum. 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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