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Vinaigrette for Meats

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Vinaigrette for Meats

Oven, in the book's wordsA rather hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the vinaigrette

  1. Mix vinegar, salt, pepper, and mustard in a bowl.

  2. Slowly add oil while whisking until combined.

  3. If desired, add chopped parsley for flavor.

Serve

  1. Serve immediately. If serving with fish or birds, omit the 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.

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 + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Mustard + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,588 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

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

  5. Vinegar + peppertop 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
Provides the sharp acidity that balances the rich oil and brightens the dressing.
Oil
Supplies fat that emulsifies with the vinegar to give the dressing a smooth body.
Mustard
Acts as an emulsifier that helps hold the oil and vinegar together and adds sharpness.

The step that matters

Slowly add oil while whisking. Adding oil gradually while whisking breaks it into tiny droplets that stay suspended in the vinegar. Adding it too fast lets the oil separate out, leaving a greasy, unstable dressing.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Dillfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Parsleythe original

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