Name: French Salad Dressing
Ingredients: ½ teaspoon coarse sea salt; ¼ teaspoon black pepper; ½ cup oil; 2 tablespoons tarragon vinegar

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

½ teaspoon coarse sea salt
¼ teaspoon black pepper
½ cup oil
2 tablespoons tarragon vinegar

Directions

Make the dressing

Stir the salt and pepper into 1 tablespoon of oil until dissolved.
Mix in 4 more tablespoons of oil.

Dress the salad

Pour the mixture over the salad and toss well.
Add the tarragon vinegar and mix thoroughly.
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.

Pepper + tarragontop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,399 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Tarragon + vinegartop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,547 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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: Carries the dissolved seasoning and gives the dressing its body and richness.
Tarragon vinegar: Adds acidity and a sharp, aromatic flavour that balances the oil.

“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.