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Cheese Salad

A salad of grated cheese, egg yolk, olive oil, spices, and optional chicken.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and tarragon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 901 recipes. Both carry methyleugenol, which smells clove, spice. The science ↓

Cheese Salad

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a bowl, combine the grated cheese, egg yolk, and olive oil.

  2. Add cayenne, salt, sugar, mustard, onion juice, and tarragon vinegar, then mix well until combined.

  3. If desired, fold in minced chicken.

  4. Serve with bread and butter.

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. Mustard + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together901 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  2. Pepper + tarragontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Mustard + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  4. Olive + mustardtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Olive + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Grated cheese
Provides the main body, richness and flavor of the salad.
Egg yolk
Adds richness and helps bind the cheese into a smooth, creamy mixture.
Olive oil
Adds fat for a smoother texture and carries flavor through the salad.
Tarragon vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the rich cheese and balances the flavors.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cheese, egg, olive, pepper, sugar, mustard, tarragon):

  1. Lettucefits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cheese, egg, olive, pepper, sugar, mustard, tarragon. 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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