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Onion Salad Dressing

A cold dressing made with ice, salt, onion relish, cayenne pepper, ketchup, oil, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Onion Salad Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Place the ice in a soup plate.

  2. Add the salt, onion relish, cayenne pepper, and tomato ketchup to the ice.

  3. Stir the ingredients together with the ice.

  4. Add the vegetable oil and vinegar, mixing well to combine.

  5. Stir the ice around with the other ingredients to keep everything cold.

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 + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  2. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 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

Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and balances the sweetness of the ketchup and relish.
Vegetable oil
Adds fat that gives the dressing a smooth, rounded body and carries flavour.
Tomato ketchup
Adds sweetness, tang and body to the dressing.
Onion relish
Adds sweet, savoury onion flavour and texture.

The step that matters

Stir the ice around with the other ingredients to keep everything cold.. Keeping the dressing cold slows separation of the oil and vinegar and keeps the flavours crisp. Stirring the ice through the mixture spreads the chill evenly, so the oil does not separate out before serving.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Cucumberfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, pepper, tomato, ketchup, 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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