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Salad

Perfectly White Dressing

A light, custard-like dressing made from egg whites, lemon juice, water, butter, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,227 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Perfectly White Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Heat the lemon juice and water in a saucepan.

  2. Stir in the well-beaten egg whites.

  3. Beat continually with a whisk while cooking.

  4. When it resembles white custard, stir in the butter.

  5. Season with salt to taste.

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. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

Egg and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 44,316 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

Egg whites
Thicken as they cook, setting into a smooth, custard-like dressing.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the richness of the butter.
Butter
Adds fat that gives the dressing a smoother, richer mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Beat continually while cooking. Egg whites can curdle or set in lumps if left unstirred over heat. Constant whisking keeps the proteins evenly distributed so the dressing cooks into a smooth custard.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Vanillafits about as well
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Raspberryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter. 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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