Skip to main content
Salad

Russian Dressing

A creamy salad dressing made with mayonnaise, chili sauce, chives, green pepper, whipped cream, Worcestershire sauce, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Sauce and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,787 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Russian Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a bowl, combine mayonnaise, chili sauce, chives, and green pepper.

  2. Whip the cream until stiff and fold it into the mixture.

  3. Add Worcestershire sauce and vinegar, mixing well.

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. Sauce + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Chive + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,885 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  4. Chive + vinegartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,065 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sauce + chivetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together461 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 base and rich, fatty body of the dressing.
Chili sauce
Adds sweetness, tang, and a warm red color to the dressing.
Cream
Whipped to add airy lightness and a softer, smoother texture.
Green pepper
Contributes crisp texture and a fresh, slightly bitter vegetable note.

The step that matters

Folding in the whipped cream. Cream should be whipped only until stiff, then folded gently. Overwhipping turns it grainy and can cause it to separate, while stirring vigorously deflates the air that gives the dressing its lightness.

Swap the chive

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Horseradishfits better
  4. Chivethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sauce, pepper, cream, 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.

You might also like

Chicken SaladChicken Salad623 recipesSalad DressingSalad Dressing491 recipesTomato SaladTomato Salad179 recipesCold SlawCold Slaw160 recipes