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Salad

French Dressing

A salad dressing made with oil, vinegar, pepper, salt, garlic, and optional red pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

French Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare your salad and place it in a salad bowl.

  2. In a small bowl, mix the black pepper, salt, and red pepper.

Make the dressing

  1. Add a piece of ice about the size of a hickory nut to the bowl.

  2. Pour the vinegar into the bowl and stir until the dry ingredients dissolve.

  3. Gradually add the oil while mixing thoroughly.

  4. Pour the dressing over the salad.

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 + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Pepper + garlictop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,090 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Clove + garlictop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,368 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  4. Vinegar + garlictop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Oil
Forms the body of the dressing and carries richness and mouthfeel.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the oil.
Garlic
Adds aroma and a sharp savoury note to the dressing.

The step that matters

Gradually add the oil while mixing thoroughly. Oil and vinegar are normally immiscible, so adding oil slowly while mixing breaks it into small droplets that stay suspended as an emulsion. Adding it all at once lets it separate out quickly.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Basilfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, pepper, garlic. 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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