Why it works: Peanut and lemon work together. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 341 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓
Sour Salad Dressing
Ingredients
Directions
Make the dressing
Rub the peanut or almond butter smooth with the water.
Bring the mixture to a boil over the fire.
Remove from the stove and add the salt and lemon juice.
Finish
Cool the dressing before use.
If too thick, thin with additional lemon juice or water.
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.
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Peanut + lemontop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together341 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Peanut or almond butter
- Provides the main body, nutty flavour and richness of the dressing.
- Water
- Loosens the nut butter into a smooth, pourable emulsion.
- Lemon juice
- Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the richness of the nut butter.
The step that matters
Rubbing the nut butter smooth with the water. If the nut butter is not fully smoothed in before heating, lumps will remain and the dressing will not come together evenly. Working the water in gradually keeps the mixture uniform.
“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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