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Salad

Watercress Salad

A salad of young watercress dressed with salt, pepper, oil, vinegar, and optional onion or garlic.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Watercress and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 533 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Watercress Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dressing

  1. Wash the watercress thoroughly.

  2. In a cup, combine the salt and pepper.

  3. Add 1 tablespoon of salad oil and mix well.

  4. Gradually add 2 more tablespoons of salad oil and 1 tablespoon of vinegar.

Finish

  1. Optionally, rub the inside of the salad bowl with onion or garlic 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. Watercress + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together533 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Watercress + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together983 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Vinegar + oniontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 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

Young watercress
Provides the leafy base and fresh, peppery flavor of the salad.
Salad oil
Carries the seasonings and coats the leaves with a light, smooth fat.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the oil.

The step that matters

Adding the oil gradually. Oil added slowly into the salt and pepper mixture, while stirring, forms a more stable emulsion that clings to the leaves instead of pooling at the bottom of the bowl.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (watercress, pepper, vinegar):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against watercress, pepper, 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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