Name: Salad of Cress, Pepper-grass, and Chervil
Ingredients: equal quantities of cress, pepper-grass, and chervil; salt to taste; dressing of your choice

Why it works: Pepper and chervil work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 867 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Salad of Cress, Pepper-grass, and Chervil

Ingredients

equal quantities of cress, pepper-grass, and chervil
salt to taste
dressing of your choice

Directions

Wash and carefully pick over the greens.
Mix equal quantities of cress, pepper-grass, and chervil.
Prepare the salad as you would a Lettuce Salad.
Add mustard-grass if in season.

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.

Pepper + cherviltop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together867 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Pepper + grasstop 26% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together37 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).
Grass + cherviltop 29% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together9 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).