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Salad

Cress Salad

A salad of watercress and mustard cress dressed with a vinaigrette of French Orleans vinegar, tarragon vinegar, and Provence oil, topped with sliced hard‑boiled egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Cress Salad

Why it works: Watercress and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 293 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Cress Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. In a bowl, mix equal parts of French Orleans vinegar, tarragon vinegar, and Provence oil.

  2. Season the mixture with coarse sea salt and mignonette pepper.

Prepare and serve

  1. Thoroughly wash and trim the watercress and mustard cress, then drain well.

  2. Pour the dressing over the cress and mix gently.

  3. Transfer to a salad bowl and garnish with sliced hard-boiled egg before serving.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Watercress + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together293 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Watercress + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together108 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Mustard + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together901 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Tarragon + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Vinegar + tarragontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,547 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

Watercress
Provides the main leafy bulk and a peppery, fresh flavour.
Mustard cress
Adds a sharp, peppery bite and crisp texture to the leaves.
French orleans vinegar
Supplies acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the oil.
Tarragon vinegar
Adds acidity and an aniseed-like aroma that complements the greens.
Provence oil
Carries the flavours of the dressing and coats the leaves with fat.

The step that matters

Drain the cress well before dressing. Water left on the leaves dilutes the vinaigrette so it slides off instead of clinging, and the oil and vinegar cannot coat the greens evenly.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (watercress, egg, vinegar, tarragon, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against watercress, egg, vinegar, tarragon, pepper. 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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