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Salad

Salad Dressing

A mustard-based salad dressing with tomato ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Salad Dressing

Why it works: Celery and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Salad Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Stir together salt, celery seed, sugar, mustard, Worcestershire sauce, white mustard seed, and red pepper.

  2. Add tomato catsup and mix well.

  3. Slowly drizzle in Wesson oil while stirring.

  4. Add lemon juice and vinegar, and mix until combined.

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. Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Celery + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Celery + tomatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

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

  5. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 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

Wesson oil
Forms the body of the dressing and carries flavor, giving it a rich mouthfeel.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that balances the sweetness and richness of the oil.
Lemon juice
Adds bright acidity that lifts the flavors and cuts through the oil.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that rounds out the acidity and the sharp mustard notes.
Mustard
Adds pungent flavor and helps emulsify the oil into the dressing.

The step that matters

Slowly drizzle in Wesson oil while stirring. Adding oil slowly while stirring lets it disperse into fine droplets held by the mustard and other ingredients, so the dressing stays emulsified rather than separating into a layer of oil.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (celery, sugar, mustard, sauce, pepper, lemon, vinegar):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, sugar, mustard, sauce, pepper, lemon, 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.

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