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Salad

Aspic Mayonnaise Dressing

A dressing made with aspic jelly, salad oil, vinegar, sugar, mustard, salt, cayenne, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Vinegar and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,067 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Aspic Mayonnaise Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Melt the aspic jelly or consommé slightly and place in a bowl over ice water.

  2. Mix the dry ingredients (sugar, mustard, salt, cayenne) with the vinegar.

Make the dressing

  1. Whisk the jelly until it begins to thicken.

  2. Gradually add the oil and vinegar mixture while whisking.

  3. Add the lemon juice last while continuing to whisk until fully combined.

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 + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Mustard + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,816 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Sugar + mustardtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,424 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Aspic jelly or consommé
Its gelatin thickens and sets the dressing as it chills over ice.
Salad oil
Forms the emulsified fat base that gives the dressing its creamy body.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that balances the richness of the oil and jelly.
Mustard
Its compounds help emulsify the oil and stabilise the dressing.
Sugar
Rounds out the sharpness of the vinegar and mustard with mild sweetness.

The step that matters

Gradually add the oil and vinegar mixture while whisking. Adding the oil too fast or before the jelly has thickened can break the emulsion, so the dressing separates instead of turning smooth and creamy.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Cherryfits about as well
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Avocadofits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, sugar, mustard. 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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