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Salad

Salad Dressing

A vinaigrette-style dressing made with oil, mustard, egg yolk, salt, vinegar, and optional cayenne pepper or mashed potato.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Salad Dressing

Why it works: Mustard and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,340 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Salad Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. Beat the egg yolk in a bowl.

  2. Gradually rub in the oil, followed by the mustard, salt, and vinegar.

  3. If the mixture does not combine well, add a few drops of vinegar to help it emulsify.

Vary and serve

  1. For variation, substitute oil with melted butter, cream, or juice from boiled ham.

  2. Pour the dressing over your choice of salad greens or vegetables 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. Mustard + potatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,340 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  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

Egg yolk
Its lecithin helps oil and vinegar bind into a stable, creamy emulsion.
Oil
Supplies the fat that gives the dressing its body and rich mouthfeel.
Mustard
Its compounds help stabilise the emulsion and add sharp flavour.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that balances the richness of the oil and yolk.

The step that matters

Adding the oil gradually. Oil must be added slowly while the yolk is mixed so tiny droplets disperse and stay suspended. Adding it too fast lets the oil separate, so the dressing breaks instead of thickening.

Swap the potato

The recipe marks potato as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mustard, egg, vinegar, pepper):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Potatothe original

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