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Salad

Sydney Smith's Salad Dressing

A vinaigrette dressing made with boiled potatoes, mustard, olive oil, vinegar, eggs, onion, anchovy sauce, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Anchovy and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,057 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Sydney Smith's Salad Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Strain the boiled potatoes through a kitchen sieve.

  2. Mix in the mustard and salt.

  3. Add the olive oil and vinegar, stirring well.

  4. Mash the hard-boiled eggs and mix them in.

  5. Finely chop the onion and add it to the mixture.

  6. Finally, stir in the anchovy sauce.

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. Anchovy + saucetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  3. Mustard + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  4. Potato + olivetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,458 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Potato + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,340 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Boiled potatoes
Thicken the dressing and give it a smooth, creamy body when strained.
Olive oil
Adds richness and fat, giving the dressing a smooth, emulsified body.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the rich oil.
Hard-boiled eggs
Mashed into the dressing to add body and a soft, creamy texture.
Mustard
Adds sharpness and helps bind the oil and vinegar together.

The step that matters

Add the olive oil and vinegar, stirring well.. Oil and vinegar naturally separate, so stirring thoroughly while adding them helps form a more stable, smooth emulsion, especially with the mustard and potato present.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mustard, olive, vinegar, egg, onion, anchovy, sauce):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against mustard, olive, vinegar, egg, onion, anchovy, sauce. 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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