Name: Cherry Salad
Ingredients: ½ pound fresh cherries (or preserved glacé cherries); 1 tablespoon best salad oil; 1 teaspoon chopped tarragon (optional); 1 teaspoon chopped chervil (optional); a few drops of white vinegar or lemon juice (optional); sherry, Madeira, or brandy (optional); a pinch of sugar (optional)

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 ↓

Cherry Salad

Ingredients

½ pound fresh cherries (or preserved glacé cherries)
1 tablespoon best salad oil
1 teaspoon chopped tarragon (optional)
1 teaspoon chopped chervil (optional)
a few drops of white vinegar or lemon juice (optional)
sherry, Madeira, or brandy (optional)
a pinch of sugar (optional)

Directions

Prepare

Remove the stones from the cherries.
In a bowl, combine the cherries with salad oil. Add tarragon and chervil if using, along with vinegar or lemon juice if desired.

Season and serve

Optionally, add sherry, Madeira, or brandy.
Sprinkle with sugar if you prefer a sweeter 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.

Tarragon + cherviltop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together824 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,547 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Vinegar + sherrytop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together660 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).
Chervil + vinegartop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together561 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,806 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Cherries: Provide the main body of the salad, with their fruit flavour and juice.
Salad oil: Coats the cherries, adding a smooth mouthfeel and carrying flavour.

“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.