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Salad

Salad Sauce No. 1

A vinaigrette dressing made with hard‑boiled eggs, mustard, olive oil, vinegar, tarragon, garlic, sugar, salt, and optional anchovy sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and tarragon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 901 recipes. Both carry methyleugenol, which smells clove, spice. The science ↓

Salad Sauce No. 1

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Remove the yolks from the hard-boiled eggs and mash them smooth with the back of a spoon.

  2. Add the mustard and mix well.

  3. Gradually add the olive oil, mixing until well combined.

  4. Stir in the vinegar while continuing to mix.

  5. Add the tarragon vinegar, garlic vinegar, castor sugar, and salt to taste.

  6. If desired, mix in the anchovy sauce.

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. Mustard + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together901 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  2. Olive + garlictop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,665 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  3. Mustard + garlictop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  4. Vinegar + tarragontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,547 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Hard-boiled egg yolks
Mashed yolks form the creamy, emulsified body of the dressing.
Made mustard
Its emulsifying compounds help hold the oil and vinegar together.
Olive oil
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel.
Vinegar
Provides the sharp acidity that balances the rich oil and yolks.

The step that matters

Gradually add the olive oil. Adding oil slowly while mixing lets it disperse into tiny droplets held by the egg yolk and mustard. Adding it too fast can break the emulsion, leaving the dressing oily and separated.

Swap the garlic

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, mustard, olive, vinegar, tarragon, sugar, anchovy):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Parsleyfits about as well
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Garlicthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, mustard, olive, vinegar, tarragon, sugar, anchovy. 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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