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Salad

Lettuce Salad Dressing

A simple vinaigrette for lettuce salads.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 ↓

Lettuce Salad Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Mix salt, sugar, and cayenne pepper in a bowl.

  2. Dissolve the mixture in tarragon vinegar.

  3. Add olive oil and stir thoroughly.

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 + tarragontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Tarragon + olivetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,323 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Vinegar + olivetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,297 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

  5. Pepper + olivetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,263 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Olive oil
Provides the fat that forms the body of the dressing and carries flavour.
Tarragon vinegar
Adds acidity and sharp aroma, and dissolves the dry seasonings.
Powdered sugar
Adds a little sweetness that balances the acidity of the vinegar.

The step that matters

Dissolve the mixture in tarragon vinegar. Dry seasonings dissolve far more readily in the acidic liquid than in oil. Dissolving them in vinegar first spreads salt, sugar, and pepper evenly before the oil is added, so the dressing tastes uniform rather than gritty.

Swap the tarragon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, pepper, vinegar, olive):

  1. Garlicfits about as well
  2. Tarragonthe original
  3. Basilfits about as well
  4. Rosemaryfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, pepper, vinegar, olive. 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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