Why it works: Pepper and lemon 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
Work the yolks of two raw eggs until smooth.
Add salt, cayenne pepper, dry mustard, and olive oil or melted butter. Mix thoroughly.
Add the juice of half a lemon.
Gradually add melted butter until you have used ½ cup.
For every fifth teaspoon of butter, add a few drops of lemon juice until you have used the juice of 2 lemons.
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.
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Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together27,047 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Olive + lemontop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together11,922 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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Mustard + olivetop 8% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together5,950 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together15,430 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Mustard + lemontop 11% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together3,816 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Egg yolks
- Emulsify the butter and oil into a thick, smooth dressing.
- Melted butter
- Adds richness and body as it is whisked into the yolks.
- Lemon juice
- Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the richness.
- Dry mustard
- Helps stabilise the emulsion and adds a sharp, savoury note.
The step that matters
Adding the butter gradually. Egg yolks emulsify fat only when butter is added slowly, a little at a time. Adding it too fast breaks the emulsion, so the dressing separates and turns oily instead of thick and smooth.
Swap the mustard
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, pepper, olive, lemon, butter):
- Capsicumfits better
- Asparagusfits better
- Spinachfits better
- Mustardthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against egg, pepper, olive, lemon, butter. 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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