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Salad

Salad Dressing

A vinaigrette made with egg yolks, mustard, olive oil, lemon juice, vinegar, egg whites, flour, water, salt, and cayenne pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Salad Dressing

Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Salad Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the emulsion

  1. Beat the egg yolks and add the mustard.

  2. Gradually beat in the olive oil, 1 teaspoon at a time, until it begins to thicken.

  3. Alternately add the lemon juice and olive oil, 1 teaspoon at a time, until all is used.

Cook and finish

  1. Fold in the beaten egg whites, flour, and water.

  2. Cook slowly, stirring until it thickens; do not boil.

  3. When cool, add the salt and cayenne pepper.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Mustard + olivetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

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, giving it a thick, creamy body.
Olive oil
Supplies fat that, emulsified with the yolks, gives richness and smooth texture.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the richness of the oil.
Egg whites
Folded in before cooking, they add structure and help thicken the mixture as it heats.
Flour
Thickens the dressing as it cooks, stabilising its body.

The step that matters

Cook slowly without boiling. Egg proteins set as they heat and can curdle or scramble if overheated. Cooking gently while stirring lets the mixture thicken smoothly without turning grainy.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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