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Salad

Truffle Salad, with Artichokes, Luning Style

A salad of sliced artichokes and truffles dressed with egg yolk, mustard, oil, and tarragon vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and tarragon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 901 recipes. Both carry methyleugenol, which smells clove, spice. The science ↓

Truffle Salad, with Artichokes, Luning Style

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the artichokes

  1. Peel and slice the artichokes into thin pieces, then sprinkle with a little coarse sea salt and let them macerate for 20 minutes.

  2. Drain the artichokes on a napkin.

Make the dressing

  1. Pass the yolks of the hard boiled eggs through a fine sieve into a bowl.

  2. Mix the egg yolks with the English mustard, oil, and tarragon vinegar to create a dressing.

Assemble and serve

  1. Finely slice the truffles and place them in a salad bowl with the artichokes.

  2. Rub the bottom of the bowl with garlic, then season with salt and pepper.

  3. Pour the dressing over the truffles and artichokes, cover the bowl, and mix well before serving.

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. Mustard + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together901 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  2. Artichoke + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together600 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Artichoke + tarragontop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together60 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Artichoke + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together116 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Young tender artichokes
Provide the main body of the salad, with a tender texture once salted and drained.
Truffles
Add a strong earthy aroma that defines the flavour of the salad.
Hard boiled egg yolks
Are pressed through a sieve and mixed into the dressing, giving it a smooth, rich body.
English mustard
Adds sharpness to the dressing and helps emulsify the oil with the yolks.
Tarragon vinegar
Adds acidity and a subtle aniseed note that brightens the dressing.
Oil
Provides fat that gives the dressing its richness and coats the vegetables.

The step that matters

Mixing the dressing into the artichokes and truffles. Yolks, mustard and oil must be combined smoothly so the dressing forms a stable emulsion; if it separates, it will pool rather than coat the slices evenly.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (artichoke, truffle, garlic, pepper, egg, mustard, tarragon):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against artichoke, truffle, garlic, pepper, egg, mustard, 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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