Skip to main content
Salad

Colb Meat Salad, Fbbnch Style

Cold meat salad with anchovy, shallot, onion, parsley, and vinaigrette.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Shallot and tarragon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 602 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Colb Meat Salad, Fbbnch Style

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the cold meat into very thin slices, about 2-3 inches long and 1 inch wide.

  2. In a salad bowl, mix the anchovy fillets, shallot, onion, and parsley.

Dress and rest

  1. Add the oil, wine vinegar, tarragon vinegar, mustard, pepper, and salt. Mix well.

  2. Add the cold meat a few slices at a time, ensuring it is thoroughly seasoned.

  3. Cover and let it stand for 2 hours.

  4. Garnish with parsley and pickles 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. Shallot + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together602 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Parsley + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Vinegar + tarragontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,547 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Shallot + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,431 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 roast or boiled meat
Forms the body of the salad and absorbs the dressing as the slices rest.
Anchovy fillets
Adds a salty, savoury depth that rounds out the vinegar and oil.
Shallot
Contributes a mild, sharp onion flavour and aroma to the dressing.
Oil
Carries fat-soluble flavours and gives the dressing a smooth, rich mouthfeel.
Wine vinegar
Provides acidity that brightens the meat and balances the oil.
French mustard
Adds sharpness and helps emulsify the oil and vinegar into the dressing.

The step that matters

Add the cold meat a few slices at a time. Adding the meat in small batches lets each slice be coated evenly with dressing. Piling it in all at once can leave some slices bland and others soggy, since dressing that is not spread out will pool and not season the meat thoroughly.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, anchovy, shallot, parsley, wine, vinegar, tarragon):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, anchovy, shallot, parsley, wine, vinegar, tarragon. 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.

You might also like

Chicken SaladChicken Salad623 recipesSalad DressingSalad Dressing491 recipesTomato SaladTomato Salad179 recipesCold SlawCold Slaw160 recipes