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 the outer leaves and stalks from the lettuce heads.
Cut each head into quarters.
Dress and serve
In a salad bowl, combine olive oil, tarragon vinegar, pepper, and salt, then beat the mixture with a fork for a few minutes.
Add the lettuce and toss quickly for five minutes, adding the minced 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
- Olive oil
- Carries the flavour and coats the leaves with a light, glossy fat.
- Tarragon vinegar
- Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the oil.
- Cabbage lettuce
- Forms the body of the salad, providing crisp, watery leaves for the dressing to cling to.
The step that matters
Beat the oil and vinegar before adding the lettuce. Beating the oil and vinegar together with a fork temporarily emulsifies them, so the dressing blends into a more uniform coating instead of separating into oil and vinegar pools on the leaves. Tossing quickly keeps the crisp leaves from wilting under the acid.
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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