Name: Delmonico Salad Dressing
Ingredients: 1 hard cooked egg, chopped; 2 tablespoons olive oil; 1 teaspoon chopped green peppers; 1 teaspoon tomato ketchup; 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce; Red pepper to taste; Coarse sea salt to taste; 2 tablespoons tarragon vinegar

Why it works: Ketchup and sauce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,099 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Delmonico Salad Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

In a bowl, combine the chopped hard cooked egg, olive oil, green peppers, tomato ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, and tarragon vinegar.
Season with red pepper and coarse sea salt to taste.
Mix well and serve cold over lettuce, tomatoes, or other salad ingredients.

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.

Ketchup + saucetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,099 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Olive + tomatotop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15,539 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Pepper + tarragontop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,399 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Tomato + tarragontop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together391 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,923 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

Hard cooked egg: Adds body and richness to the dressing as its chopped pieces blend in.
Olive oil: Provides fat that carries flavour and gives the dressing a smooth, pourable texture.
Tarragon vinegar: Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the richness of the oil and egg.
Tomato ketchup: Contributes sweetness and tomato flavour along with a little acidity.
Worcestershire sauce: Adds savoury, umami depth to the dressing.

Swap the tomato

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

Capsicumfits better
Mustardfits better
Shallotfits better
Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, olive, pepper, ketchup, sauce, tarragon, 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.