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Salad

Ordinary Salad

A salad made from mashed hard-boiled egg yolks mixed with mustard, oil, Worcestershire sauce, vinegar, herbs, onions, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,259 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Ordinary Salad

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Smash the hard-boiled yolks of eggs in a bowl with a wooden spoon.

  2. Add mustard, pepper, and salt; mix thoroughly.

  3. Gradually add oil, mixing until the texture is uniform.

  4. Add Worcestershire sauce carefully, then pour in vinegar little by little.

  5. Beat the mixture for about five minutes, then taste and adjust seasoning if necessary.

  6. Finally, mix in the herbs and onions.

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

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

  2. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Mustard + saucetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,120 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Hard-boiled egg yolks
Form the creamy base that the oil emulsifies into.
Oil
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy texture as it emulsifies with the yolks.
Mustard
Its natural emulsifiers help hold the oil and yolk mixture together.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the rich yolk and oil flavor.

The step that matters

Adding the oil gradually. Oil added too fast cannot be absorbed by the yolk mixture and can separate, leaving a greasy, broken texture. Adding it slowly while mixing lets the yolk lecithin coat the oil droplets and form a stable, uniform emulsion.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, mustard, pepper, sauce, 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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