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Salad

Italian Sauce for Salads

A vinaigrette made with sauce tournée, mustard, tarragon, chervil, salad oil, tarragon vinegar, and coarse sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Italian Sauce for Salads

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. In a bowl, combine the sauce tournée, mustard, tarragon, and chervil.

  2. Blend well while gradually adding the salad oil until smooth.

  3. Slowly mix in the tarragon vinegar, ensuring it does not appear oily.

  4. Add a little coarse sea salt to taste.

Serve

  1. Pour the sauce over 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. Mustard + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together901 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Mustard + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together207 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Tarragon + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,547 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Sauce tournée
Provides a thick, savoury base that gives the dressing body.
Mustard
Helps emulsify the oil and vinegar so the dressing stays smooth.
Salad oil
Supplies fat for a smooth, rich texture and mouthfeel.
Tarragon vinegar
Adds acidity and sharp flavour that balances the oil.

The step that matters

Adding the vinegar slowly. Adding vinegar too quickly to the oil can break the emulsion, leaving the dressing looking oily and separated. Slow, steady mixing keeps the oil dispersed in the liquid so the sauce stays smooth.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sauce, tarragon, chervil, vinegar):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Lettucefits about as well
  3. Mustardthe original
  4. Chivefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sauce, tarragon, chervil, vinegar. 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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