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Salad

Winter Salad

A salad of braised onions, sardines, hard‑boiled eggs, and mayonnaise dressing.

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 ↓

Winter Salad

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the onions

  1. Peel the onions and remove the center with a long cutter.

  2. Place a small piece of butter in each onion cavity and braise in a 350°F (175°C) oven until tender.

  3. Let the onions cool, then slice them and arrange in a salad bowl.

Assemble and serve

  1. Clean and bone the sardines, then cut into small fillets and place on the onions.

  2. Garnish with slices of hard-boiled egg.

  3. Prepare a dressing with mayonnaise, tarragon, chervil, gherkins, pepper, and salt; pour over the salad and serve.

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. Tarragon + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Chervil + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together867 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Onion + cherviltop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together668 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Spanish onions
Become tender and sweet when braised, forming the base of the salad.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the onions as they braise.
Sardines
Provide the savory, oily fish flavor that is the salad's centerpiece.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add soft, mild richness as a garnish that balances the sardines.
Mayonnaise sauce
Adds fat and creaminess that binds the dressing and coats the salad.

The step that matters

Braising the onions until tender. Onions braised too briefly stay firm and sharp, while cooking them slowly in a moderate oven softens their cell structure and mellows their sulfur bite. Let them cool fully before slicing so they hold their shape.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, egg, sauce, tarragon, chervil, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, sauce, tarragon, chervil, pepper. 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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