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Salad

French Dressing

A cold salad dressing made with oil, salt, vinegar, paprika, lemon juice, and optional onion juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Vinegar and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,226 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

French Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Ensure all ingredients are cold.

  2. Mix the oil, salt, vinegar, paprika, lemon juice, and onion juice thoroughly.

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 + oniontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  2. Lemon + oniontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,646 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Vinegar + lemontop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,334 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Oil
Provides the fat base and smooth body that carries the dressing's flavour.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the dressing its sharp, tangy bite.
Lemon juice
Adds extra acidity and bright citrus flavour.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Cucumberfits better
  3. Broccolifits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, lemon. 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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