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Salad

Adah Salad Dressing

A salad dressing made with egg yolks, olive oil, salt, pepper, vinegar, and chopped hard-boiled egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Olive and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,297 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, fruity. The science ↓

Adah Salad Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a bowl, combine the yolks of three hard-boiled eggs and one raw egg yolk.

  2. Slowly add ½ cup of olive oil while beating thoroughly until thick.

  3. Stir in ½ teaspoon of salt and ½ teaspoon of pepper.

  4. Add the chopped whites of the three hard-boiled eggs and ½ teaspoon of vinegar.

  5. Mix well and serve on lettuce, vegetable, lobster, or chicken 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. Olive + vinegartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,297 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

  2. Olive + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,263 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

  4. Egg + olivetop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,340 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Egg + vinegartop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,922 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and vinegar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,922 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Emulsify the oil and form a thick, smooth dressing body.
Olive oil
Provides fat and richness, giving the dressing its smooth, thick texture.
Chopped egg whites
Add texture and body as small pieces suspended in the dressing.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the rich yolk and oil flavor.

The step that matters

Slowly add the olive oil while beating. Adding oil gradually lets the yolk lecithin coat the droplets, forming a stable emulsion. Pouring too fast can break the dressing so it stays thin and oily.

“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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