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 ↓
Salad
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the lettuce
Remove all outside leaves from the lettuce and cut off the stalks close.
Cut each head into quarters by cutting through the stalk and tearing the rest.
Dress and toss
Combine olive oil, tarragon vinegar, pepper, and salt in a salad bowl.
Beat the mixture with a fork for a few minutes.
Add the lettuce to the bowl.
Toss quickly for five minutes, adding the finely chopped mint.
Serve immediately.
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.
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Lettuce + tarragontop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together425 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Cabbage + lettucetop 4% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together622 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Tarragon + peppertop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together2,399 recipes
Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
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Lettuce + olivetop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together2,580 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
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Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,081 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Cabbage lettuce
- Forms the crisp, leafy body of the salad that carries the dressing.
- Olive oil
- Adds fat and smooth richness, coating the leaves and carrying flavour.
- Tarragon vinegar
- Provides acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the oil.
The step that matters
Toss quickly for five minutes. Oil and vinegar must be beaten into a emulsion first, then tossed gently with the leaves so they are evenly coated without wilting or becoming soggy. Tossing too long or too hard bruises the lettuce and makes it limp, so serve right after dressing.
Swap the mint
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cabbage, lettuce, olive, tarragon, vinegar, pepper):
- Dillfits better
- Capersfits better
- Parsleyfits better
- Mintthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, lettuce, olive, tarragon, vinegar, 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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