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French Dressing

A vinaigrette dressing made with vinegar, olive oil, salt, cayenne pepper, 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. In a chilled cup, combine the salt, cayenne pepper, and lemon juice.

  2. Add the olive oil and stir constantly.

  3. Gradually add the vinegar while continuing to stir.

  4. Optionally, substitute lemon juice for vinegar if desired.

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. Vinegar + olivetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,297 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

  4. Pepper + olivetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,263 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  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

Olive oil
Provides the fat that gives the dressing its body and carries flavor.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that cuts through the richness of the oil.
Lemon juice
Adds bright acidity and a fresh citrus note.

The step that matters

Gradually add the vinegar while continuing to stir. Oil and acid do not mix on their own. Adding the vinegar slowly while stirring breaks the liquid into fine droplets, so the dressing stays blended rather than separating into layers.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Limefits about as well
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Cherryfits about as well
  4. Mangofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, pepper, olive. 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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