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Salad, Beef

A salad of sliced beef with lettuce or endive haricot beans, garnished with gherkin, tarragon, chervil, onion, seasoned with salt, pepper, mustard, vinegar, and oil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

Salad, Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the cold beef into thin slices.

  2. In a salad bowl, combine the beef, lettuce or endive, and haricot beans.

  3. Add the optional ingredients if desired.

Dress and serve

  1. Season the salad with salt, pepper, mustard, vinegar, and salad oil. Mix all ingredients lightly with a fork.

  2. Serve immediately.

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. Lettuce + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together396 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Lettuce + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,356 recipes

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

  4. Lettuce + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together425 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Tarragon + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together901 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold beef
Forms the main body of the salad, providing protein and substance.
Lettuce or endive
Adds crisp texture and fresh bulk to the salad.
Haricot beans
Add softness and body, bulking out the salad with a mild flavour.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the oil.
Salad oil
Supplies fat that carries flavour and coats the leaves and beans.
Mixed mustard
Adds sharpness and emulsifies the oil and vinegar into the dressing.

The step that matters

Dress and mix lightly. Lettuce wilts and bruises easily, so dressing it just before serving and tossing gently with a fork keeps leaves crisp and prevents the oil and vinegar from making them soggy.

Swap the tarragon

The recipe marks tarragon as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, lettuce, beans, chervil, onion, pepper, mustard):

  1. Capersfits about as well
  2. Tarragonthe original
  3. Celeryfits less well
  4. Thymefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, lettuce, beans, chervil, onion, pepper, mustard. 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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