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Grouse Salad

A salad of roasted grouse served over lettuce with egg yolk sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Lettuce and tarragon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 425 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Grouse Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the grouse

  1. Roast the grouse and cut it into neat joints.

  2. Place the joints in a pie dish, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and pour lemon juice and olive oil over them.

  3. Let marinate for 3-4 hours, turning and basting frequently.

Assemble the salad

  1. Wash and dry the lettuce thoroughly, then shred it finely.

  2. Create a deep bed of lettuce in a serving dish.

  3. Arrange the grouse pieces on top of the lettuce.

  4. Garnish with slices of hard-boiled egg, parsley, and savory jelly if desired.

  5. Add a border of curled celery and additional slices of hard-boiled egg around the dish.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks for 3-4 minutes, then add salt and pepper.

  2. Gradually mix in olive oil and tarragon vinegar until the sauce reaches desired thickness.

  3. Pour the sauce over the grouse and lettuce just 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. Lettuce + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together425 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Lemon + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,137 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Beaten yolks emulsify the olive oil into a thick, smooth sauce.
Olive oil
Fat that carries flavor and gives the marinade and sauce a rich, smooth body.
Lemon juice
Acidity that flavors the grouse during marinating and brightens the dish.
Tarragon vinegar
Acidity in the sauce that balances the richness of the yolks and oil.
Grouse
Main protein, which is cooked first and then marinated to add moisture and flavor.

The step that matters

Gradually mixing the oil into the egg yolks. Adding oil slowly while beating lets the yolk lecithin emulsify it into a stable sauce. Adding it too fast can cause the sauce to split and become oily.

Swap the lettuce

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, lemon, olive, egg, parsley, tarragon, vinegar):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Lettucethe original
  4. Chivefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, lemon, olive, egg, parsley, tarragon, 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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