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Grouse Salad

A salad of roasted grouse served with hard‑boiled eggs and a butter, shallot, sugar, oil, vinegar, and cream sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and tarragon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 602 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Grouse Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the eggs

  1. Boil the eggs hard, then shell them and place in cold water.

  2. Cut a thin slice off the bottom of each egg to stand them upright.

  3. Cut each egg into four lengthwise and arrange them upright on a serving dish.

  4. Create a thin border of butter about one inch from the edge of the dish.

Make the sauce

  1. Prepare the grouse by roasting it slightly underdone, then cut into 8‑10 pieces.

  2. In a bowl, combine shallots, sugar, egg yolks, parsley, and salt.

  3. Gradually mix in the oil and vinegar until well combined, then chill the sauce.

  4. Whip the cream until thick and gently fold it into the sauce.

Assemble and serve

  1. Place the grouse pieces on the salad, cover with sauce, and serve.

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 + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together602 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  4. Vinegar + tarragontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,547 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Boiled and sliced, they form the structure and visual base of the dish.
Egg yolks
They emulsify the oil and vinegar into a thick, smooth sauce.
Oil
Provides fat and richness, carried into the yolk emulsion to give body.
Cream
Whipped and folded in, it lightens the sauce and adds a soft, creamy texture.
Chili vinegar
Adds acidity and sharpness that cut through the richness of the oil and cream.

The step that matters

Gradually mix in the oil and vinegar. Adding oil slowly to the yolks lets them emulsify it into a stable sauce; adding it too fast causes the sauce to split and separate.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, butter, shallot, sugar, vinegar, cream, tarragon):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Cinnamonfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, shallot, sugar, vinegar, cream, 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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