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Salad

French Salad Dressing

A simple vinaigrette made with olive oil, vinegar, onion juice, salt, pepper, and optional mustard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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French Salad Dressing

Why it works: Onion and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,259 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

French Salad Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a bowl, combine salt and pepper.

  2. Gradually add olive oil while stirring.

  3. Add onion juice and vinegar, then stir vigorously for a few moments.

  4. For some salads, add mustard.

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. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Olive + mustardtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Olive + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,779 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Olive oil
Forms the bulk of the dressing and carries its flavour and richness.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the oil and balances its richness.
Mustard
Helps emulsify the oil and vinegar so they hold together longer.

The step that matters

Gradually add olive oil while stirring. Adding oil slowly while stirring lets it disperse into small droplets in the vinegar. Pouring it in all at once makes the mixture separate quickly.

Swap the mustard

The recipe marks mustard as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, olive, onion, vinegar):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, olive, onion, 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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