Name: French Salad Duessikg
Ingredients: 1 saltspoonful coarse sea salt; ½ saltspoonful black pepper; 5 tablespoons 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 Duessikg

Ingredients

1 saltspoonful coarse sea salt
½ saltspoonful black pepper
5 tablespoons oil
2 tablespoons tarragon vinegar

Directions

Stir the salt and pepper into a large spoonful of oil until dissolved.
Mix in four additional tablespoons of oil.
Pour the mixture over the salad and turn it 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.

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).