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Grouse Salad

A salad of roasted grouse, hard‑boiled eggs, and a sauce of shallot, sugar, egg yolks, parsley, salt, oil, vinegar, cream, tarragon, and chervil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and tarragon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 602 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Grouse Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the eggs until hard, then shell them and place in cold water.

  2. Cut the eggs into quarters.

  3. Prepare the grouse by roasting or cooking as desired.

Make the sauce

  1. In a bowl, mix shallot, sugar, egg yolks, parsley, and salt.

  2. Slowly whisk in oil and chili vinegar until combined.

  3. Add cream, tarragon, and chervil to the mixture.

Assemble

  1. Arrange the salad with grouse and eggs, then drizzle with the sauce.

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. Shallot + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together602 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Parsley + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Whole hard-boiled eggs provide body and a rich, firm texture to the salad.
Egg yolks
Emulsify the oil and vinegar into a thick, smooth sauce.
Oil
Forms the fat base of the sauce, giving it richness and body.
Cream
Adds softness and moisture, mellowing the sharpness of the vinegar.
Chili vinegar
Supplies acidity and heat that cut through the richness of the sauce.
Grouse
The main protein, contributing savory flavor and meaty texture.

The step that matters

Slowly whisk in oil and chili vinegar. Egg yolks can only bind oil into a stable emulsion if the oil is added gradually. Adding it too fast causes the sauce to split and turn greasy and loose.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, butter, shallot, sugar, vinegar, cream, tarragon):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Cinnamonfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, shallot, sugar, vinegar, cream, tarragon. 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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