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Salad

Cold Sauces, Salads, Etc

A simple vinaigrette made with salt, pepper, olive oil, and tarragon vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and tarragon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,399 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Cold Sauces, Salads, Etc

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. In a bowl, combine the salt and pepper. Add the olive oil and mix well.

  2. Add the tarragon vinegar and mix thoroughly.

Dress and serve

  1. Pour the dressing over the salad and toss to coat.

  2. Serve immediately.

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. Pepper + tarragontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Olive + tarragontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,323 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Pepper + olivetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,263 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Olive oil
Adds fat and body, carrying flavor and coating the salad leaves.
Tarragon vinegar
Adds acidity and sharp aroma, brightening the oil and balancing its richness.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the dressing and draws out flavor from the other ingredients.

The step that matters

Add the vinegar and mix thoroughly. Oil and vinegar are immiscible, so without thorough mixing the dressing separates and the acid clusters unevenly, giving some bites sharp and others bland.

Swap the tarragon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, olive):

  1. Rosemaryfits better
  2. Basilfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Tarragonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, olive. 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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