Name: Boiled Salad Deessing
Ingredients: 3 egg yolks; 1 teaspoon salt; 4 tablespoons olive oil; ½ cup melted butter; 1 teaspoon pepper; 2 tablespoons vinegar; 1 teaspoon cayenne; 1 tablespoon lemon juice; Whipped cream

Why it works: Pepper and lemon 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 ↓

Boiled Salad Deessing

Ingredients

Directions

Beat the egg yolks until thick and lemon colored.
Slowly add the olive oil, melted butter, vinegar, and lemon juice while beating constantly.
Cook in a double boiler until the mixture thickens and coats the back of a spoon.
Mix the salt, mustard, pepper, and cayenne together, then add to the thickened mixture.
Chill thoroughly, and when ready to serve, mix with an equal quantity of whipped cream.

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.

Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Olive + lemontop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,922 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Olive + vinegartop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,297 recipes

Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).
Olive + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together30,263 recipes

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