Name: Salad of Cold Meat
Ingredients: 1 pound cold meat (roasted, boiled, or stewed); 3 shallots, finely chopped; 2 tablespoons chopped parsley; 1 tablespoon chopped tarragon; 1 tablespoon chopped chervil; ¼ teaspoon salt; ¼ teaspoon pepper; 6 tablespoons salad oil; 2 tablespoons vinegar

Why it works: Tarragon and chervil match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 824 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Salad of Cold Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Cut the cold meat into slices about the size of a half-dollar, including some fat.

Make the salad

Place the meat on a dish and add the chopped shallots, parsley, tarragon, chervil, salt, and pepper.
Pour the salad oil and vinegar over the mixture and toss gently without breaking the meat.
Serve in a salad bowl or on another dish.

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.

Tarragon + cherviltop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together824 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Shallot + cherviltop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together266 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Shallot + tarragontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together602 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Parsley + tarragontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,563 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,737 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

Cold meat: Forms the body of the salad, providing protein and substance for the dish.
Salad oil: Carries the herbs and seasoning and adds richness and moisture to the meat.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the oil.
Shallots: Add a mild, sharp onion flavour that cuts through the richness of the meat and oil.

The step that matters

Toss gently without breaking the meat. Tossing gently keeps the meat in larger pieces so it stays tender and holds its shape, while still letting the oil and vinegar coat every slice evenly.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, shallot, tarragon, chervil, pepper, vinegar):

Capersfits better
Parsleythe original
Thymefits about as well
Marjoramfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, shallot, tarragon, chervil, 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.

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Salad of Cold Meat