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Salad

Parisian Salad Dressing

A creamy salad dressing made with egg yolks, salad oil, vinegar, herbs, and optional cream or butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Parisian Salad Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Remove the yolks from the hard-boiled eggs and place them in a bowl.

  2. Add the raw yolks to the bowl and mix to moisten.

  3. Season with salt, white pepper, and cayenne.

  4. Slowly stir in the salad oil and vinegar drop by drop.

  5. Add the chopped onions, chervil, and chives, mixing until smooth.

  6. Incorporate the cream or melted butter.

  7. Chop the egg whites finely and add them to the dressing.

  8. Use the dressing as needed.

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. Chervil + chivetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together370 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Tarragon + chivetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together589 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Onion + chivetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,907 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Tarragon + peppertop 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

Hard-boiled egg yolks
Form a rich, smooth base that thickens the dressing and carries the other flavours.
Raw egg yolks
Emulsify the salad oil and vinegar into a stable, creamy dressing.
Salad oil
Provides fat that gives the dressing its body and silky mouthfeel.
Tarragon or wine vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the rich yolks and oil.
Cream or melted butter
Adds fat that softens the texture and mellows the dressing.
Chopped egg whites
Add texture and body without overpowering the smooth dressing.

The step that matters

Slowly stir in the salad oil and vinegar drop by drop. Oil and vinegar only combine into a stable emulsion when added slowly while mixing, because the egg yolk lecithin surrounds tiny oil droplets. Adding too fast makes the dressing separate and look greasy.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, tarragon, onion, chervil, chive, cream, pepper):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, tarragon, onion, chervil, chive, cream, 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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