Name: Lamb Salad
Ingredients: cold lamb, thinly sliced; 1 small onion, finely sliced; 2 stalks celery, finely sliced; ½ teaspoon chopped tarragon; ¼ teaspoon salt; ¾ teaspoon pepper; 2 tablespoons oil; 1½ tablespoons tarragon vinegar

Why it works: Celery and tarragon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 456 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Lamb Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Cut the cold lamb into very thin slices.

Make and serve the salad

In a bowl, mix the onion, celery, tarragon, salt, pepper, oil, and tarragon vinegar.
Combine the mixture with the sliced lamb and 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.

Celery + tarragontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together456 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together16,012 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Tarragon + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,399 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,518 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Tarragon + vinegartop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,547 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold lamb: Forms the main body of the salad, providing protein and chew.
Oil: Adds fat and moisture, carrying the flavour of the herbs and vinegar.
Tarragon vinegar: Adds acidity that brightens the salad and balances the richness of the oil.
Celery: Adds a crisp texture that contrasts with the tender lamb.

Swap the onion

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

Mustardfits better
Lettucefits better
Capsicumfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, celery, tarragon, pepper, 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.