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French Salad Dressing

A vinaigrette made with oil, vinegar, mustard, eggs, sugar, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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French Salad Dressing

Why it works: Vinegar and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,067 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

French Salad Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. If desired, rub the bowl with garlic or add a few drops of onion juice.

  2. Mix the salt and pepper together.

Make the dressing

  1. Slowly stir the salad oil into the salt and pepper mixture, then add the vinegar.

  2. Alternatively, pour the oil and vinegar directly onto the salad and toss lightly but thoroughly.

  3. For Dr. Ketchmer's salad dressing, beat the hard boiled yolks of eggs with a wooden spoon until smooth.

  4. Stir in the water or cream, sugar, salt, and mustard, then add the vinegar.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  3. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Salad oil
Forms the bulk of the dressing and carries its rich, smooth body.
Vinegar
Adds the sharp acidity that defines the dressing's tang.
Hard boiled egg yolks
Emulsifies the oil and water or cream for the Dr. Ketchmer variation.
Mustard
Adds sharpness and helps bind the oil and vinegar together.

The step that matters

Adding the oil slowly. Oil added in a thin stream to the seasoned mixture is dispersed into small droplets, which keeps the dressing from separating. Pouring it in all at once lets the oil and vinegar split into layers.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Mustardthe original
  3. Horseradishfits about as well
  4. Spinachfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, pepper, egg, cream, sugar. 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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