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Salad

Salad Dressing

A fermented lime and herb dressing with cloves, peppercorns, seeds, garlic, capsicums, and tarragon vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Salad Dressing

Why it works: Parsley and tarragon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,563 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Salad Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Bruise the limes, cloves, peppercorns, green herbs, and onion.

  2. Add the garden cress, celery, and parsley seeds, garlic, and minced capsicums to the mixture.

  3. Combine with the tarragon vinegar.

Steep and store

  1. Cork the bottle tightly.

  2. Seal with wax.

  3. Place in the sun for 1-2 weeks.

Finish

  1. Strain the liquid before use.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Celery + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together456 recipes

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

  5. Lime + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together547 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Limes
Adds sharp citrus acidity and fresh aroma to the dressing.
Tarragon vinegar
Provides the main acidic base and carries the flavours of the herbs and spices.
Garlic
Adds pungent aroma that mellows during steeping.
Onion
Contributes savoury depth and aroma to the infused liquid.
Peppercorns
Add mild heat and aromatic pungency to the infusion.

The step that matters

Place in the sun for 1-2 weeks. Steeping over time lets the acids and aromatic compounds from the limes, herbs, and spices slowly extract into the vinegar. A short steep gives a weak, unbalanced flavour, and the bottle must be tightly corked and sealed so the vinegar does not evaporate or spoil during the long infusion.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lime, clove, celery, parsley, garlic, capsicum, tarragon):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lime, clove, celery, parsley, garlic, capsicum, 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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