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Ptarmigan Salad

A salad of cold roast ptarmigan served with a creamy sauce of egg yolk, herbs, and chili vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Ptarmigan Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the ptarmigan into neat joints and set aside.

  2. Wash the salad greens in salted water and dry them in a napkin.

Make the sauce

  1. To make the sauce, beat the egg yolk for 1 minute, then mix in salt, sugar, shallot, and herbs.

  2. Gradually stir in the salad oil, beating briskly between each addition.

  3. Add the chili vinegar and chill the sauce until needed.

  4. Before serving, mix in the thick cream.

Assemble and serve

  1. Layer some salad greens in a dish, add the inferior joints of the bird, and cover with sauce.

  2. Top with more salad greens and the remaining bird joints, then pour sauce over everything.

  3. Garnish the dish with a rim of butter and arrange the hard-boiled eggs on top.

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

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

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Shallot + vinegartop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,374 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Parsley + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolk
Emulsifies the oil and vinegar into a thick, stable sauce.
Salad oil
Provides the fat that gives the dressing its body and smooth richness.
Chili vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the sauce and balances the rich oil and cream.
Thick cream
Adds richness and a softer, creamier texture to the finished sauce.
Ptarmigan
Serves as the main protein, with its meat and joints forming the body of the salad.

The step that matters

Gradually stir in the salad oil. Adding oil slowly while beating lets the egg yolk emulsify it into a stable sauce. Adding it too fast can cause the sauce to break and separate.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, shallot, vinegar, cream, butter):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, shallot, vinegar, cream, butter. 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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