Skip to main content
Salad

French Dressing

A vinaigrette made with olive oil, vinegar, salt, pepper, and optional mustard or onion juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Tarragon and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 901 recipes. Both carry methyleugenol, which smells clove, spice. The science ↓

French Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. In a small bowl, combine salt, pepper, and olive oil.

  2. Stir occasionally until the salt is partly dissolved.

  3. Add vinegar a few drops at a time, stirring briskly in one direction until emulsified.

  4. Continue until the mixture thickens and no vinegar drops are visible.

Use and season

  1. Use immediately as it separates quickly.

  2. For added flavor, mix in a tiny pinch of dry mustard if using shredded cabbage.

  3. If you dislike raw onion, add strained onion juice for flavor.

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. Tarragon + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together901 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  2. Mustard + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  3. Olive + mustardtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Olive + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,779 recipes

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

  5. Olive + tarragontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,323 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

Olive oil
Forms the continuous fat phase that the vinegar droplets are dispersed into.
Vinegar
Supplies the sharp acidity and the water phase that emulsifies with the oil.

The step that matters

Adding the vinegar slowly. Adding the vinegar a few drops at a time while stirring briskly breaks it into fine droplets that stay suspended in the oil. Added too fast, the oil and vinegar separate and the dressing will not thicken.

Swap the mustard

The recipe marks mustard as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (white pepper, olive, tarragon, onion):

  1. Chivefits about as well
  2. Lettucefits about as well
  3. Shallotfits about as well
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against white pepper, olive, tarragon, onion. 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.

You might also like

Chicken SaladChicken Salad623 recipesSalad DressingSalad Dressing491 recipesTomato SaladTomato Salad179 recipesCold SlawCold Slaw160 recipes