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Sauce

Vinaigrette Sauce

A simple vinaigrette sauce made with vinegar, oil, salt, white pepper, and mustard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and vinegar 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 ↓

Vinaigrette Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a bowl, mix the salt, white pepper, and mustard together.

  2. Very slowly add the vinegar while mixing well.

  3. After mixing, add the oil and stir until 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. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. White pepper + vinegartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,154 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. White pepper + mustardtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together618 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Mustard
Acts as an emulsifier, helping the oil and vinegar stay blended together.
Vinegar
Provides the sharp acidity that balances the richness of the oil.
Oil
Supplies fat that gives the sauce body and a smooth mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Very slowly add the vinegar while mixing well. Adding the vinegar slowly while whisking lets the seasonings and mustard disperse evenly through the liquid. Dumping it in at once can leave the mustard clumped and the sauce poorly combined.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Dillfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mustard, vinegar. 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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