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Salad

Grouse Salad, Plain

A salad of cooked grouse, lettuce, hard‑boiled eggs, cress, shallots, tarragon vinegar, and optional sugar, dressed with remoulade or similar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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, Plain

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the cooked grouse into joints or slices.

Assemble the salad

  1. Arrange the grouse on a bed of plainly dressed lettuce.

  2. Create a border of cress and hard-boiled eggs around the grouse, alternating them.

  3. Sprinkle the grouse with chopped shallots and a few drops of tarragon vinegar.

  4. Pour the dressing over the salad, ensuring enough to moisten the lettuce and game.

  5. Optionally, add a pinch of sugar to improve the lettuce.

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. Lettuce + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together425 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Lettuce + shallottop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together157 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. 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

Cooked grouse
Provides the main protein and savoury flavour of the salad.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add richness and a soft, creamy texture to the border.
Tarragon vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and the game.
Dressing (rémoulade or other)
Moistens the lettuce and game and adds fat and tang.

The step that matters

Pouring the dressing over the salad. Too little dressing leaves the lettuce and game dry, while too much makes the leaves limp and soggy. Add enough to coat lightly, just before serving.

Swap the lettuce

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

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Beetrootfits better
  4. Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, shallot, tarragon, vinegar, sugar. 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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