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Salad

Cauliflower Salad

A salad of boiled cauliflower dressed with olive oil, tarragon vinegar, pepper, and salt, garnished with capers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Tarragon and capers match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 379 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Cauliflower Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the cauliflower in salted water until tender but not overcooked.

  2. Once cold, cut the cauliflower into small sprigs.

  3. In a bowl, mix the olive oil, tarragon vinegar, pepper, and salt.

  4. Rub a serving dish lightly with garlic.

Assemble and serve

  1. Arrange the cauliflower pieces on the dish and sprinkle with capers 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. Tarragon + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together379 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Cauliflower + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Olive + garlictop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,665 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  4. Olive + caperstop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,688 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Cauliflower
Forms the main body of the salad and stays firm when cooked only until tender.
Olive oil
Carries flavour and adds richness and moisture to the dressing.
Tarragon vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the oil.
Garlic
Rubbed on the dish, it leaves a light aroma without large pieces in the salad.

The step that matters

Boil the cauliflower until tender but not overcooked. Overcooked cauliflower breaks down and turns soft and watery, so the sprigs lose their shape and texture in the salad. Stopping at tender keeps them firm enough to hold up when dressed.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cauliflower, olive, tarragon, vinegar, pepper, garlic, capers):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cauliflower, olive, tarragon, vinegar, pepper, garlic, 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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