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Salad

American Salad Dressing

A vinaigrette made with egg yolks, vinegar, olive oil, mustard, salt, and cayenne pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Vinegar and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,067 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

American Salad Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Mash the cooked yolks until smooth.

  2. Rub in the raw yolk using an elastic bladed knife for at least 5 minutes.

  3. Add the salt, cayenne, and olive oil drop by drop while stirring rapidly.

  4. Gradually add the vinegar until well combined.

  5. Adjust with more oil and vinegar if needed.

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. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Olive + mustardtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

  5. Olive + peppertop 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

Hard-boiled egg yolks
Form a smooth, creamy base that the oil can emulsify into.
Raw egg yolk
Its lecithin helps hold the oil and vinegar together as a stable emulsion.
Olive oil
Supplies the fat that gives the dressing its body and richness.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens flavor and thins the emulsion slightly.
Mustard
Its emulsifiers help stabilize the dressing and add sharp flavor.

The step that matters

Adding the oil drop by drop while stirring rapidly. Oil added too quickly cannot be dispersed into the yolk mixture, so the emulsion breaks and the dressing separates. Slow addition with constant stirring lets tiny oil droplets get coated by yolk proteins and lecithin, keeping the mixture thick and smooth.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Cucumberfits about as well
  3. Tomatofits about as well
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, vinegar, olive, 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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