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Salad

Lettuce Salad

A fresh salad of lettuces, garden cress, tarragon, chervil, egg yolks, oil, vinegar, mustard, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Tarragon and chervil match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 824 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Lettuce Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lettuce

  1. Rinse the lettuces and dry thoroughly.

  2. Break the leaves into convenient pieces.

Make the dressing

  1. In a bowl, combine the garden cress, tarragon, chervil, sieved egg yolks, salad oil, tarragon vinegar, and French mustard. Mix until smooth.

Toss and serve

  1. Add the lettuce and toss gently to coat.

  2. Season with coarse sea salt and pepper to taste before serving.

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. Tarragon + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together824 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Garden cress + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Garden cress + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together23 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Tarragon + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together901 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Garden cress + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together18 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Emulsify with the oil and mustard to form a smooth, creamy dressing.
Salad oil
Carries the flavours and coats the leaves with a glossy, rich texture.
Tarragon vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the oil.
Garden cress
Contributes a fresh, peppery flavour to the dressing.

The step that matters

Mix the dressing until smooth. Egg yolk, oil and mustard must be mixed thoroughly so the oil is held in tiny droplets within the yolk. Incomplete mixing leaves the dressing greasy and separated instead of creamy.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (garden cress, tarragon, chervil, egg, vinegar, mustard, pepper):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Lettucefits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against garden cress, tarragon, chervil, egg, vinegar, mustard, 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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