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Salad

Avocado Salad Dressing

A creamy dressing made from avocado, vinegar, red pepper, salt, mustard, citrus juice, and oil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Avocado Salad Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Press the avocado through a sieve or potato press.

  2. Mix the vinegar, red pepper, coarse sea salt, mustard, and lemon or lime juice in a bowl.

  3. Gradually add the oil to the mixture, stirring continuously.

  4. Combine the oil with the avocado pulp until smooth.

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

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

  2. Avocado + mustardtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together234 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Avocado + lemontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together800 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 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

Avocado
Provides creamy body and rich texture to the dressing.
Oil
Adds fat and smoothness, emulsifying with the acidic mixture when added gradually.
Mustard
Acts as an emulsifier, helping the oil and liquids stay blended.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and balances the fat.
Lemon or lime juice
Contributes acidity and fresh citrus flavor to the dressing.

The step that matters

Gradually add the oil. Adding oil slowly while stirring lets it break into tiny droplets that stay suspended in the acidic liquid. Adding it all at once can cause the dressing to separate.

Swap the avocado

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

  1. Limefits better
  2. Avocadothe original
  3. Orangefits about as well
  4. Cherryfits about as well

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