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Salad

Sage Dressing

A dressing made from stale bread crumbs, butter, parsley, sage, marjoram, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 507 recipes. Both carry 2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Sage Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Mix the dressing

  1. Combine stale bread crumbs, melted butter, chopped parsley, salt, powdered sage, powdered sweet marjoram, and black pepper in a bowl, then mix all ingredients thoroughly.

  2. Moisten the mixture by adding the melted butter.

Serve

  1. Serve as a dressing for roasted geese, ducks, or pork.

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. Sage + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together507 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  2. Parsley + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Parsley + sagetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,445 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Marjoram + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Stale bread crumbs
Provide the bulk and structure of the dressing, soaking up the butter to hold a soft texture.
Melted butter
Adds moisture and richness, coating the crumbs so the dressing stays tender.
Powdered sage
Contributes the dominant savory, aromatic flavour of the dressing.
Powdered sweet marjoram
Adds a mild, floral herbal aroma that complements the sage.

The step that matters

Moistening the mixture with butter. Bread crumbs absorb fat and liquid unevenly if the butter is poured in one spot. Adding it gradually and mixing well lets the crumbs take it up evenly, so the dressing is moist throughout without turning soggy in places.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, butter, sage, marjoram, pepper):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Winter savoryfits about as well
  4. Rosemaryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, butter, sage, marjoram, 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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