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Salad

Anchovy Essence in Salads

A simple anchovy-based vinaigrette made with anchovy essence, wine vinegar, olive oil, pepper, salt, and optional aromatics.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Anchovy Essence in Salads

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a bowl, combine the anchovy essence, wine vinegar, and olive oil.

  2. Add pepper and coarse sea salt if needed.

  3. Beat the mixture well until thoroughly combined.

  4. Optionally, stir in finely chopped onions, chives, parsley, chervil, tarragon, or mustard to taste.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Chive + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Onion + chivetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,907 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Olive + parsleytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,649 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Olive + chivetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,633 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Anchovy essence
Provides the concentrated savoury, salty anchovy flavour that defines the dressing.
Wine vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the dressing and balances the rich oil.
Olive oil
Forms the body of the dressing and carries its flavour and mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Beat the mixture well until thoroughly combined. Oil and vinegar naturally separate, so vigorous beating breaks the oil into tiny droplets suspended in the acid. A well-emulsified dressing coats leaves evenly instead of pooling and tasting greasy on one side.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (anchovy, wine, vinegar, olive, pepper, chive, parsley):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against anchovy, wine, vinegar, olive, pepper, chive, parsley. 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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