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French Dressing

A vinaigrette dressing made with vinegar, olive oil, salt, black pepper, and cayenne pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Vinegar and olive are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,297 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, fruity. The science ↓

French Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Combine the base

  1. In a bowl, combine the salt and black pepper.

  2. Gradually add the olive oil while stirring.

Emulsify and serve

  1. Slowly mix in the vinegar, stirring rapidly until you achieve a perfect emulsion.

  2. Use the dressing immediately for best results.

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. Vinegar + olivetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,297 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

  2. Pepper + olivetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,263 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. 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
Adds sharp acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the richness of the oil.
Olive oil
Forms the fat base that carries flavour and gives the dressing its body.

The step that matters

Slowly mixing in the vinegar while stirring rapidly. Oil and vinegar naturally separate. Adding the acid slowly while stirring vigorously breaks the oil into tiny droplets that stay suspended, creating a stable emulsion instead of a layer of oil on top.

“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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