Skip to main content
Drink

French Dressing

A simple vinaigrette made with vinegar, olive oil, salt, and black pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Vinegar and olive are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,297 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, fruity. The science ↓

French Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. In a bowl, combine salt and black pepper.

  2. Gradually add olive oil while rubbing and mixing until the salt is dissolved.

  3. Slowly add vinegar, stirring constantly for about a minute.

Serve

  1. 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.

  1. Vinegar + olivetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,297 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

  2. Olive + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,263 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. 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

Olive oil
Provides the fat that gives the dressing its body and carries the flavor of the seasonings.
Vinegar
Adds the sharp acidity that balances the richness of the oil and brightens the dressing.

The step that matters

Slowly add vinegar, stirring constantly. Vinegar and oil do not mix on their own. Adding the vinegar slowly while stirring breaks the oil into tiny droplets that stay suspended, creating a temporary emulsion. Pouring it in all at once lets the oil and vinegar separate quickly.

“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.

You might also like

Raspberry VinegarRaspberry Vinegar214 recipesSugar VinegarSugar Vinegar20 recipesVegetable SoupVegetable Soup350 recipesBrown Coffee with EggBrown Coffee with Egg175 recipes