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French Dressing

A vinaigrette dressing made with mustard, red pepper, salt, olive oil, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

French Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine mustard, red pepper, and salt in a bowl.

  2. Rub these dry ingredients together well.

  3. Slowly add the olive oil while beating the mixture.

  4. Stir in the lemon juice constantly until the dressing is thick like cream.

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. Olive + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,922 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Mustard + olivetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

  5. Mustard + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,816 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Olive oil
Forms the body of the dressing as it is beaten in, giving it richness and a creamy texture.
Mustard
Its natural emulsifiers help hold the oil and lemon juice together in a stable dressing.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the richness of the oil.

The step that matters

Slowly add the olive oil while beating. Adding oil gradually while beating breaks it into tiny droplets that stay suspended in the acidic liquid. Adding it too fast can cause the dressing to separate instead of thickening.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, olive, 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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