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Salad

Vinaigrette of Cold Meat

A vinaigrette made with sliced cold boiled beef, seasoned with pepper, salt, pickles, herbs, vinegar, oil, and garnished with anchovies, gherkins, capsicums, and capers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Chervil and tarragon 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 ↓

Vinaigrette of Cold Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the cold boiled beef into small thin slices.

  2. Arrange the slices in a dish.

Dress and decorate

  1. Season with pepper, coarse sea salt, chopped pickles, chervil, tarragon, vinegar, and oil.

  2. Decorate with fillets of anchovies, gherkins, capsicums, and capers.

  3. Do not stir before serving.

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. Chervil + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together824 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Chervil + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together135 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Tarragon + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together379 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Pepper + capsicumtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,571 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold boiled beef
Provides the main body of the dish, sliced thin so it eats tender and absorbs the dressing.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and balances the richness of the oil.
Oil
Carries the flavours of the seasonings and gives the dressing a smooth, rich mouthfeel.
Fillets of anchovies
Contribute a salty, savoury depth that rounds out the dressing.

The step that matters

Do not stir before serving. Stirring breaks up the arranged slices and mixes the oil and vinegar unevenly through the meat. Leaving the dish undisturbed lets the dressing settle over the slices and keeps the decoration intact.

Swap the capsicum

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Capsicumthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, chervil, tarragon, vinegar, capers. 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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