Name: French Salad
Ingredients: 2 anchovies; 1 shallot; some parsley; 2 tablespoons vinegar; 1 tablespoon oil; a little mustard; coarse sea salt

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 the dressing

Chop the anchovies, shallot, and parsley finely.
Combine them in a bowl with vinegar, oil, mustard, and salt.

Dress and rest

Mix well, then gradually add thin slices of cold roast or boiled meat, not exceeding 3 inches long.
Shake the meat in the seasoning before adding more.
Cover the bowl and let the salad sit for 3 hours before serving.
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.

Shallot + mustardtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together859 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,737 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together14,067 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Parsley + mustardtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,588 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
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: Adds deep savoury saltiness that carries through the whole dressing.
Shallot: Adds sharp, pungent onion flavour that mellows during resting.
Vinegar: Provides the acidity that brightens the dressing and the meat.
Oil: Carries flavour and gives the dressing a smooth, rich coating.
Mustard: Adds sharp pungency and helps the oil and vinegar hold together.