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Vinaigrette Sauce

A vinaigrette sauce made with salt, paprika, tarragon vinegar, cider vinegar, oil, green pepper, cucumber, pickles, and chives.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Tarragon and chive match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 589 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Vinaigrette Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the vinaigrette

  1. In a bowl, mix the salt and paprika.

  2. Add the tarragon vinegar and cider vinegar, and stir well.

  3. Slowly whisk in the oil until combined.

Add the vegetables

  1. Fold in the chopped green pepper, cucumber, pickles, and chives.

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. Tarragon + chivetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together589 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Cucumber + chivetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together244 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Tarragon + cucumbertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together274 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Tarragon + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Vinegar + cidertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

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

What each ingredient does

Oil
Forms the body of the sauce and carries flavour, giving it a smooth, rich mouthfeel.
Tarragon vinegar
Adds sharp acidity and a distinct herbal aroma that brightens the sauce.
Cider vinegar
Adds acidity that balances the oil and gives the sauce its tang.
Pickles
Contribute acidity and crunch, adding a sharp, salty bite.

The step that matters

Slowly whisk in the oil. Oil and vinegar are immiscible, so adding the oil slowly while whisking breaks it into small droplets held in suspension. Adding it all at once can leave the sauce separated and greasy.

Swap the chive

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tarragon, vinegar, cider, pepper, cucumber):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Lettucefits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Chivethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tarragon, vinegar, cider, pepper, cucumber. 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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