Name: Thousand Island Salad Dressing
Ingredients: 1 cup mayonnaise dressing; ½ cup whipped cream; 1 teaspoon tarragon vinegar; 1 teaspoon Imperial sauce or Chile sauce; 1 hard boiled egg, chopped fine; 1 chopped green pepper; 1 chopped pimento; Juice of 1 lemon

Why it works: Tarragon and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,137 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Thousand Island Salad Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

In a bowl, combine mayonnaise dressing and whipped cream.
Add tarragon vinegar, Imperial sauce or Chile sauce, chopped egg, green pepper, and pimento.
Mix well and squeeze lemon juice over the mixture.

Serve

Serve on green salad leaves.

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.

Tarragon + lemontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,137 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Tarragon + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,399 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Tarragon + vinegartop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,547 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,787 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Mayonnaise dressing: Forms the creamy base and provides richness and moisture for the dressing.
Whipped cream: Lightens the texture and makes the dressing softer and smoother.
Tarragon vinegar: Adds acidity and a sharp, herbal tang that balances the richness.
Imperial sauce or chile sauce: Adds sweetness, tomato-based flavor and a touch of heat to the dressing.
Hard boiled egg: Adds body and a mild, savory richness to the dressing.

“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.