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Salad

French Salad Dressing

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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French Salad Dressing

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 ↓

French Salad Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. Stir the salt and pepper into ⅓ cup of oil until the salt dissolves.

  2. Mix in ⅔ cup of oil.

Dress the salad

  1. Pour the mixture over the salad and toss well.

  2. Add 2 tablespoons of tarragon vinegar and mix thoroughly.

  3. 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.

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Tarragon + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,547 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Oil
Forms the body of the dressing and coats the salad leaves with a smooth, fatty film.
Tarragon vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the dressing its sharp, bright flavor.

The step that matters

Mix in the vinegar thoroughly. Oil and vinegar separate quickly because they do not mix naturally. Thorough mixing breaks the vinegar into small droplets dispersed through the oil, so the dressing coats the leaves evenly rather than pooling at the bottom of the bowl.

“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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