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Salad Dressing

A dressing made from hard‑boiled egg yolks, mustard, vinegar, whipped cream, salt, pepper, and lettuce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Salad Dressing

Why it works: Mustard and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,356 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Salad Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. Mash the yolks of the hard boiled eggs.

  2. Add a pinch of salt, a pinch of pepper, mustard, vinegar, and whipped cream. Mix well.

Assemble the salad

  1. Pour the dressing over the lettuce.

  2. Cut the egg whites, soak them in vinegar, and lay them on top.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Mustard + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,356 recipes

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

  2. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + lettucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,037 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + vinegartop 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

Egg yolks
Mashed yolks form the creamy base of the dressing, adding richness and body.
Mustard
Adds sharp flavor and helps emulsify the dressing so it stays smooth.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the richness of the yolks.
Whipped cream
Adds fat and lightness, giving the dressing a smooth, airy texture.
Lettuce
Serves as the base that the dressing coats and the egg whites rest on.

Swap the lettuce

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, pepper, mustard, vinegar, cream):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Spinachfits about as well
  3. Lettucethe original
  4. Capsicumfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, pepper, mustard, vinegar, cream. 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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