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Salad

Oil Dressing

A creamy dressing made with egg yolks, oil, lemon juice, salt, paprika, and horseradish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Oil Dressing

Why it works: Olive and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,922 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Oil Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Beat the egg yolks in a bowl until well combined.

  2. Slowly add the oil, drop by drop, while beating rapidly.

  3. Once the dressing begins to thicken, add the oil in larger quantities.

  4. Flavor the dressing with lemon juice, salt, paprika, and horseradish.

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. Olive + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,922 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Lemon + horseradishtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,155 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Olive + horseradishtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together475 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  5. Egg + horseradishtop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together694 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

Egg and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 44,316 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

Egg yolks
Emulsify the oil into the dressing and thicken it as they are beaten.
Oil
Forms the body of the dressing, suspended in droplets within the beaten yolks.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich oil and yolk flavor.

The step that matters

Adding the oil slowly at the start. Oil must be added drop by drop while beating, so the droplets disperse and the yolk lecithin can emulsify them. Adding oil too fast at the beginning can break the emulsion, leaving a thin, separated dressing.

Swap the horseradish

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, olive, lemon):

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Horseradishthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, olive, lemon. 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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