Name: Plain Salad Dressing
Ingredients: 4 tablespoons oil; 1 tablespoon vinegar; ¼ teaspoon freshly ground pepper; ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt

Why it works: Vinegar and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,814 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Plain Salad Dressing

Ingredients

4 tablespoons oil
1 tablespoon vinegar
¼ teaspoon freshly ground pepper
¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt

Directions

In a bowl, mix 1 tablespoon of vinegar, ¼ teaspoon of coarse sea salt, and ¼ teaspoon of freshly ground pepper.
Add 4 tablespoons of oil to the mixture and toss the salad lightly for a few seconds.
Serve immediately.

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.

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: Provides fat and carries flavor, coating the leaves so the dressing feels smooth.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the richness of the oil.

“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.