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Salad

California Salad Dressing

A vinaigrette made with raw egg yolk, oil, mashed hard‑boiled egg yolk, spices, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

California Salad Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a soup plate, combine the raw egg yolk and slowly stir in the oil until thick.

  2. Add the mashed hard-boiled egg yolk and mix well.

  3. Season with red pepper, coarse sea salt, mustard, and paprika to taste.

  4. Start with a little vinegar and gradually stir in more until the desired consistency is reached.

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

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

  3. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  4. Egg + mustardtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,210 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Egg + vinegartop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,922 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and vinegar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,922 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

Raw egg yolk
Emulsifies the oil into a thick, stable dressing.
Oil
Provides fat and richness, forming the body of the dressing with the yolk.
Hard-boiled egg yolk
Adds body and a creamy, mellow texture to the dressing.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and adjusts the consistency.

The step that matters

Slowly stir in the oil. Adding oil too quickly to the raw yolk can prevent an emulsion from forming, so the dressing stays thin and may split. Adding it slowly lets the yolk coat each droplet and thicken the mixture.

Swap the mustard

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, pepper, 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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