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Salad

Pbench Lettuce Salad

A salad of French coss lettuce dressed with oil, vinegar, and herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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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 ↓

Pbench Lettuce Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lettuce

  1. Split the French coss lettuces down the stalk and divide each leaf into three or four pieces.

  2. Rinse the lettuce in cold water and shake well in a wire salad basket.

Assemble the salad

  1. Place the lettuces in a salad bowl and season with pepper and coarse sea salt.

  2. Sprinkle over coarsely chopped chives, tarragon, chervil, and parsley.

Dress and serve

  1. Mix two to three parts of salad oil with one part of French wine vinegar in a separate basin.

  2. If desired, add a little French mustard to the dressing.

  3. Mix the dressing with a wooden fork or spoon 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 + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together824 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Chive + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together370 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Lettuce + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together396 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Lettuce + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together425 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Tarragon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,563 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

French coss lettuce
Forms the crisp, leafy base that holds the dressing.
Salad oil
Provides fat and a silky mouthfeel that coats the leaves.
French wine vinegar
Adds acidity that balances the richness of the oil.
Chives
Contributes a mild onion aroma and fresh flavour.
Tarragon
Adds a distinctive aniseed-like aroma to the salad.

The step that matters

Mixing the dressing with the oil and vinegar ratio. Oil and vinegar separate on standing, so the dressing must be mixed just before serving. Tossing gently keeps the crisp leaves from bruising and wilting under the dressing.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lettuce, pepper, chive, tarragon, chervil, wine, vinegar):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Fennelfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against lettuce, pepper, chive, tarragon, chervil, wine, 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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