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Salad

Salad Oil Dressing

A lemon and olive oil dressing with egg yolks, salt, and optional egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper 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 ↓

Salad Oil Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a bowl, combine the beaten egg yolks and lemon juice.

  2. Pour in the olive oil alternately with the lemon juice while stirring vigorously.

  3. Add the salt and red pepper, mixing well.

  4. If using immediately, fold in the beaten egg whites for a lighter texture.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + olivetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,922 recipes

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

  3. Olive + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,263 recipes

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

  4. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  5. Egg + olivetop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,340 recipes

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

Egg and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 44,316 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Emulsify the oil and lemon juice, giving the dressing a smooth, thick body.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the richness of the oil.
Olive oil
Supplies fat that gives the dressing its richness and silky mouthfeel.
Egg whites
Whipped into the dressing to add air and a lighter texture when used right away.

The step that matters

Pour in the olive oil alternately with the lemon juice while stirring vigorously. Adding oil slowly while stirring vigorously lets tiny droplets disperse in the acidic yolk mixture. Pouring too fast can cause the dressing to separate and look greasy.

“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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