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Grouse Salad

A salad featuring roasted grouse, hard‑boiled eggs, fresh greens, and a creamy shallot‑sugar sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and tarragon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 602 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Grouse Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the eggs

  1. Boil the eggs hard, shell them, and place them in cold water.

  2. Cut a thin slice off the bottom of each egg for stability, then cut each egg into four lengthwise.

  3. Spread a thin layer of butter about one inch from the edge of the serving dish.

  4. Arrange the egg pieces upright, alternating yolk and white.

Make the salad and grouse

  1. In the center, place a fresh salad of seasonal ingredients.

  2. Roast the grouse until slightly underdone, then cut it into 8 to 10 pieces.

Make the sauce

  1. For the sauce, mix shallots, sugar, egg yolks, parsley, and salt in a bowl.

  2. Gradually mix in the oil and vinegar, then chill the sauce.

  3. Whip the cream until thick and gently fold it into the sauce.

Assemble and serve

  1. Layer the grouse pieces on the salad, cover with sauce, and add the remaining grouse.

  2. Pour the rest of the sauce over and serve.

  3. Optionally, garnish the eggs with radishes or beetroot, and add sliced gherkins or tarragon 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.

  1. Shallot + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together602 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Parsley + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Hard-boiled whites and yolks form the structure and visual base of the dish.
Egg yolks
Emulsify the oil and vinegar into a thick, stable sauce.
Oil
Provides fat and richness, emulsified into the yolk base for a smooth sauce.
Cream
Whipped and folded in to lighten the sauce and add a softer, creamy texture.
Grouse
Main protein, roasted just underdone so it stays moist and tender.
Chili vinegar
Adds acidity and sharpness that cuts through the rich oil and cream.

The step that matters

Gradually mix in the oil and vinegar. Adding the oil slowly to the egg yolk mixture lets it emulsify; adding it too fast can break the sauce into separated oil and liquid.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, butter, shallot, sugar, vinegar, cream, tarragon):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Cinnamonfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, shallot, sugar, vinegar, cream, tarragon. 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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