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Salad

Salad Dressing

A creamy dressing made with lemon juice, egg yolks, olive oil, sour cream, mustard, sugar, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Salad Dressing

Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Salad Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Beat the lemon juice, egg yolks, olive oil, salt, and pepper together in a bowl.

  2. Gradually add the sour cream and mix well.

  3. Stir in the mustard and sugar.

  4. Adjust seasoning with vinegar 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.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Lemon + olivetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,922 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

  5. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Emulsifier that helps hold the oil and lemon juice together as a smooth dressing.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity and brightness that cut through the richness of the oil and cream.
Olive oil
Provides fat for body, mouthfeel, and flavor.
Sour cream
Adds creaminess, body, and a mild tang to the dressing.
Mustard
Helps stabilize the emulsion and adds a sharp, savory flavor.
Sugar
Balances the sourness of the lemon juice and sour cream.

The step that matters

Gradually add the sour cream and mix well. Adding the sour cream slowly and mixing thoroughly lets it blend evenly into the emulsified base. Dumping it in at once can leave lumps or cause the dressing to separate.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lemon, egg, olive, pepper, cream, sugar):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, egg, olive, pepper, cream, sugar. 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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