Skip to main content
Salad

Italian Salad

A salad of anchovies, garlic, tarragon vinegar, salt, white pepper, and oil served over lettuce, endive, or watercress.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Clove and tarragon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 548 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Italian Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. Mash the anchovies with a little of their oil until a pulp forms.

  2. Break the garlic into 2 or 3 pieces and add it to the anchovies.

  3. Gradually mix in the tarragon vinegar, salt, and white pepper.

  4. Slowly beat in the oil until well blended.

Chill and serve

  1. Chill in the refrigerator until ready to serve.

  2. Serve on a bed of head lettuce, endive, or watercress.

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. Clove + tarragontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together548 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Tarragon + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,547 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Garlic + tarragontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together884 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Clove + garlictop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,368 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Garlic + vinegartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Anchovies
Break down into a pulp to give the dressing its savory, salty depth.
Tarragon vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the dressing and balances the rich oil.
Oil
Forms the body of the dressing as it emulsifies with the vinegar.
Garlic
Adds a sharp, aromatic flavor that infuses the dressing.

The step that matters

Slowly beat in the oil. Adding the oil gradually lets it disperse into tiny droplets held by the vinegar and anchovy pulp, creating a stable emulsion. Pouring it in too fast can cause the dressing to separate.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (clove, garlic, tarragon, vinegar):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against clove, garlic, tarragon, vinegar. 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.

You might also like

Chicken SaladChicken Salad623 recipesSalad DressingSalad Dressing491 recipesTomato SaladTomato Salad179 recipesCold SlawCold Slaw160 recipes