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Salad

French Salad

A salad of fresh herbs and vegetables dressed with a sauce of oil, lemon pickle, vinegar, ketchup, Cayenne pepper, boiled egg yolk, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Tarragon and chervil match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 824 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

French Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the salad

  1. Gather young, fresh herbs and vegetables.

  2. Trim, wash, and drain them dry.

  3. Serve in a bowl.

Make and serve the sauce

  1. In a separate bowl, mix oil, lemon pickle, vinegar, ketchup, Cayenne pepper, boiled egg yolk, and salt to make the sauce.

  2. Serve the sauce in a sauceboat alongside the salad.

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. Tarragon + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together824 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Chervil + sorreltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together247 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Sorrel + endivetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together60 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Sorrel + watercresstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Chervil + watercresstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together59 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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 sauce and carries flavour, giving it a smooth, rich mouthfeel.
Boiled egg yolk
Emulsifies with the oil, helping the sauce thicken and hold together.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the sauce and balances the richness of the oil.
Lemon pickle
Contributes sour, tangy flavour that brightens the sauce.

Swap the tarragon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chervil, sorrel, chive, endive, lettuce, watercress, dandelion):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonthe original
  3. Parsleyfits less well
  4. Thymefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against chervil, sorrel, chive, endive, lettuce, watercress, dandelion. 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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