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Salad

Salad Dressing

A creamy vinaigrette made with butter, egg yolks, mustard, olive oil, lemon juice, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Salad Dressing

Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Salad Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. Cream the softened butter until light and fluffy.

  2. Stir in the egg yolks until smooth.

  3. Mix in the mustard and salt, then add cayenne or white pepper if desired.

  4. Slowly drizzle in the olive oil while stirring continuously.

  5. Combine the lemon juice and vinegar to make ½ cup, then add slowly to the mixture while stirring.

  6. Adjust the consistency by adding more vinegar if needed, tasting as you go.

Serve

  1. If using lettuce, add celery salt to the seasoning at the beginning.

  2. Do not pour the dressing over the salad until just 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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Olive + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,922 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Mustard + olivetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy body to the dressing.
Egg yolks
Emulsifiers that bind the oil and vinegar into a stable, thick dressing.
Olive oil
Forms the bulk of the emulsion, giving the dressing its body and mouthfeel.
Prepared mustard
Acts as a further emulsifier and adds sharp, tangy flavour.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the richness of the oil.
Lemon juice
Contributes acidity and fresh citrus aroma to the dressing.

The step that matters

Drizzling in the olive oil. Adding the oil slowly while stirring lets the egg yolks and mustard disperse it into tiny droplets. Adding it too fast can break the emulsion, leaving the dressing oily and separated.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, mustard, pepper, olive, lemon, vinegar. 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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