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Salad

A Few Combinations

A simple salad of lettuce and tomatoes dressed with oil, tarragon, and parsley or chives.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Tarragon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and 1,259 recipes mention both. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Dress each vegetable separately with the dressing.

  2. Arrange on a serving dish or pour dressing over all and toss together.

  3. For one pint of vegetables, use about 3 tablespoons of oil with other ingredients as needed.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Tarragon + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,259 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Lettuce + tarragontop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together278 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Tomato + tarragontop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together303 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Lettuce + tomatotop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,654 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together5,396 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

Oil
Carries the flavor of the dressing and coats the vegetables so they feel smooth and glossy.
Lettuce
Provides the crisp, leafy body that makes up most of the salad.
Tomatoes
Add juiciness and a touch of sweetness that mingles with the dressing.
Powdered tarragon
Adds a distinctive aniseed-like aroma to the dressing.

Flavor stand-ins for the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lettuce, tarragon, parsley):

  1. Beetrootbetter flavor fit
  2. Carrotbetter flavor fit
  3. Shallotbetter flavor fit
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lettuce, tarragon, parsley. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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