Green Goddess Dressing

San Francisco's herb-green dressing of 1923: a thick mayonnaise blended with fresh tarragon, parsley, chives, and anchovy and sharpened with lemon and vinegar, draped over crab, chicken, and crisp lettuce

Origin: San Francisco, United States

From the journey of Tarragon.

Green Goddess dressing is the most distinctly American expression of tarragon, and it carries its French inheritance plainly: it is, at heart, the French marriage of tarragon and egg turned into a thick, herbaceous dressing. It was created in 1923 in the kitchen of the Palace Hotel in San Francisco, by tradition in honour of the actor George Arliss, who was then staying at the hotel and starring in a play called The Green Goddess. The dressing is a mayonnaise made vividly green and intensely savoury with a purée of fresh herbs, tarragon foremost amongst them, with parsley and chives, and given its salty depth by anchovy, the whole sharpened with lemon juice and a little vinegar. Tarragon is the defining flavour, its sweet anise note lifting the richness of the mayonnaise, and the anchovy gives the umami backbone that keeps the dressing from being merely herbal. It was conceived to dress the Dungeness crab and the cold chicken and romaine of the grand hotel dining room, and it became a Californian and then a national classic, fading for a time into the bottled supermarket aisle before being revived, in recent decades, as a darling of the fresh, herb-forward farm-to-table kitchen. It is the French fine herb made Californian.

Ingredients

200 g good mayonnaise
100 g soured cream
3 tbsp fresh tarragon leaves
4 tbsp fresh parsley leaves
3 tbsp fresh chives, snipped
4 anchovy fillets in oil
1 clove garlic
1 lemon, juiced
1 tsp white wine vinegar
salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Method

Put the tarragon, parsley, chives, anchovy fillets, and garlic in a blender or food processor with the lemon juice and vinegar. Blend to a smooth green purée.
Add the mayonnaise and soured cream and blend again, briefly, until smooth, thick, and a uniform green.
Season with salt and black pepper, taste, and adjust with more lemon if it needs sharpening. The dressing should be thick, herby, tangy, and savoury.
Chill for at least 30 minutes to let the flavours settle and the dressing thicken. Serve over crisp lettuce, cold chicken, crab, prawns, or as a dip for crudités.

Notes

Tarragon is the defining herb and should lead; parsley and chives support it, and some versions add a little fresh basil or chervil. The anchovy is traditional and important for depth, but can be left out, or replaced with a little white miso, for a vegetarian version. For a thinner pourable dressing, slacken with a little buttermilk; for a dip, keep it thick. The original was served with the Palace Hotel's Dungeness crab.

The Gastrographer

Name: Green Goddess Dressing
Prep time: 10 min
Total time: 10 min
Yield: 6
Cuisine: United States
Ingredients: 200 g good mayonnaise; 100 g soured cream; 3 tbsp fresh tarragon leaves; 4 tbsp fresh parsley leaves; 3 tbsp fresh chives, snipped; 4 anchovy fillets in oil; 1 clove garlic; 1 lemon, juiced; 1 tsp white wine vinegar; salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Mapping Culinary History

To explore — select an ingredient below.

To explore — select an ingredient below · click any location dot on the map for recipes and stories · browse the information panel on the right · trace the full journey on the timeline.

Journey Point Map Key

Ingredient originTrade or transit route

Became a culinary stapleColonial / trade control