Skip to main content
Salad

French Dressing

A creamy vinaigrette made with egg yolk, oil, lemon juice, salt, and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Egg and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 44,316 recipes. Both carry (e,e)-2,4-decadienal, which smells fatty, deep fried. The science ↓

French Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a bowl, beat the egg yolk until smooth.

  2. Slowly add the oil while whisking until the mixture thickens.

  3. Thin the dressing with lemon juice and season with salt.

  4. Fold in the whipped cream and mix well.

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

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

  2. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Lemon + creamtop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,640 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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 yolk
Emulsifies the oil into the lemon juice, giving the dressing its thick body.
Oil
Provides fat and richness, forming the body of the emulsified dressing.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and thins it slightly.
Whipped cream
Adds air and softness, giving the dressing a lighter, creamier texture.

The step that matters

Slowly add the oil while whisking. Oil must be added gradually so the egg yolk can disperse it into tiny droplets. Adding it too fast breaks the emulsion, leaving the dressing oily and thin instead of thick.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raspberryfits better
  3. Strawberryfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, cream. 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.

You might also like

Chicken SaladChicken Salad623 recipesSalad DressingSalad Dressing491 recipesTomato SaladTomato Salad179 recipesCold SlawCold Slaw160 recipes