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Salad

French Dressing for Salads

A vinaigrette made with salt, pepper, vinegar, oil, and optional garlic.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

French Dressing for Salads

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Rub a bowl or spoon with a little garlic.

  2. Combine salt and pepper in a salad spoon and fill it with oil.

  3. Stir with a fork until well mixed, then pour over the salad.

  4. Measure the remaining oil and vinegar, then add to the salad.

  5. Toss the salad with a fork and spoon until all leaves are coated.

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. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Pepper + garlictop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,090 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Clove + garlictop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,368 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  4. Vinegar + garlictop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Oil
Carries the dressing and coats the leaves, adding richness and mouthfeel.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the oil.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the dressing and helps draw out flavour from the other ingredients.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Basilfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, vinegar, garlic. 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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