Skip to main content
Salad

French Salad

A salad of anchovies, shallot, parsley, vinegar, oil, mustard, salt, and thin slices of cold roast or boiled meat.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Shallot and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 859 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

French Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Combine the chopped anchovies, shallot, and parsley in a bowl.

  2. Add vinegar, oil, mustard, and salt; mix well.

  3. Gradually add thin slices of cold roast or boiled meat, shaking to coat.

Rest and serve

  1. Cover the bowl and let the salad sit for 3 hours before serving.

  2. Garnish with parsley and a few slices of fat.

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 + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together859 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

  3. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Parsley + mustardtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,588 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Shallot + vinegartop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,374 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

Anchovies
Provide a strong, salty flavor that seasons the whole salad.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the salad and balances the richness of the oil and meat.
Oil
Carries flavor and adds fat, giving the dressing a smooth mouthfeel.
Mustard
Adds sharp pungency and helps the oil and vinegar emulsify into the dressing.
Cold roast or boiled meat
Forms the body of the salad and absorbs the dressing as it rests.

The step that matters

Letting the salad rest. Resting for 3 hours lets the vinegar, oil, and anchovy flavors penetrate the meat and soften the shallot, so the dressing tastes integrated rather than sharp on the surface.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (shallot, vinegar, mustard, meat):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against shallot, vinegar, mustard, meat. 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.

You might also like

Chicken SaladChicken Salad623 recipesSalad DressingSalad Dressing491 recipesTomato SaladTomato Salad179 recipesCold SlawCold Slaw160 recipes