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Salad

Lettuce Dressing

A vinaigrette dressing for lettuce made with egg, salt, mustard, sugar, cayenne, olive oil, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and vinegar 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 ↓

Lettuce Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. In a bowl, combine the raw egg, salt, mustard, sugar, and cayenne pepper.

  2. Whisk in the olive oil and vinegar until the mixture is well blended.

Serve

  1. Do not add the dressing to the lettuce until you are ready to serve.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Mustard + olivetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

  4. Olive + vinegartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,297 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

  5. Pepper + olivetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,263 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Raw egg
Emulsifies the oil and vinegar, binding the dressing into a smooth, thick mixture.
Olive oil
Provides fat and body, giving the dressing its richness and silky texture.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the richness of the oil.
Mustard
Helps hold the emulsion together and adds a sharp, savoury bite.

The step that matters

Whisk in the oil and vinegar until well blended. Oil and vinegar separate unless they are whisked gradually into the egg, which carries the fat in tiny droplets. Adding the oil too fast or skipping the whisking can make the dressing split and look greasy.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardthe original
  3. Cucumberfits about as well
  4. Tomatofits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, pepper, olive, 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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