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Salad

Russian Dressing

A tangy salad dressing made with mayonnaise, Brand's A-1 sauce, chili sauce, lemon juice, and optional olives, pickles, peppers, or chives.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and olive are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,922 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Russian Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Squeeze lemon juice onto a cold plate.

  2. Add chili sauce and Brand's sauce, then mix thoroughly.

  3. Stir in mayonnaise until well combined.

  4. Optionally, add chopped olives, pickles, peppers, or chives 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.

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. Lemon + olivetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,922 recipes

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

  2. Sauce + olivetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,568 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Sauce + lemontop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Mayonnaise
Provides the creamy, rich base that gives the dressing its body.
Chili sauce
Adds sweetness, tomato tang and a reddish color.
Brand's a-1 sauce or worcestershire sauce
Adds savory, tangy depth to the dressing.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and balances the richness of the mayonnaise.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Limefits about as well
  3. Cherryfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sauce, olive. 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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