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Salad

French Dressing

A simple salad dressing made with oil, vinegar, salt, pepper, and optional grated onion juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

French Dressing

serves up to 6

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. In a cup, combine salt and pepper.

  2. Add 1 tablespoon of oil and mix thoroughly.

  3. Stir in the remaining oil and vinegar.

  4. Add grated onion juice if desired.

Serve

  1. Serve as dressing for up to 6 people.

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 + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  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

Oil
Forms the base of the dressing and carries the flavor of the seasonings.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the richness of the oil.
Salt
Seasons the dressing and helps bring out the flavors of the other ingredients.

The step that matters

Add 1 tablespoon of oil and mix thoroughly. Salt and pepper dissolve poorly in oil alone. Mixing the seasonings with a small amount of oil first helps them distribute evenly before the rest of the oil and vinegar are added.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, pepper. 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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