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Dessert

French Dressing

A simple vinaigrette made with salt, mustard, cayenne pepper, olive oil, and lemon or lime juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 ↓

French Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a bowl, combine salt, mustard, and cayenne pepper.

  2. Gradually add olive oil while rubbing constantly.

  3. Slowly stir in lemon or lime juice.

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 + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Olive + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,922 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Mustard + olivetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  5. Mustard + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked 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

Olive oil or salad oil
Forms the bulk of the dressing and carries its richness and mouthfeel.
Mustard
Its natural emulsifiers help hold the oil and acid together as a smooth dressing.
Lemon or lime juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the richness of the oil.

The step that matters

Gradually add olive oil while rubbing constantly. Adding the oil slowly while working it in keeps tiny droplets dispersed, so the emulsion forms and stays smooth instead of separating into a greasy layer.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, olive, lemon):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, olive, 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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