Skip to main content
Salad

Salad Dressing, No. 1

A simple vinaigrette made with oil, vinegar, mustard, sugar, salt, pepper, and optional tarragon vinegar.

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

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 ↓

Salad Dressing, No. 1

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Mix the salt, pepper, sugar, and mustard with the oil.

  2. Slowly add the vinegar while stirring continuously.

  3. If desired, add a little tarragon vinegar.

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

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

  3. Mustard + sugartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,424 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Vinegar + white peppertop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,154 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Mustard + white peppertop 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

Salad oil
Forms the continuous fat base that gives the dressing its body and mouthfeel.
Vinegar
Adds acidity and sharpness that balances the richness of the oil.
Mustard
Helps the oil and vinegar stay combined as an emulsion instead of separating.

The step that matters

Slowly add the vinegar while stirring continuously. Mustard helps bind oil and vinegar into an emulsion. Adding the vinegar slowly while stirring breaks it into fine droplets, so the dressing stays combined rather than separating into layers.

Swap the white pepper

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

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

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

More salad dressing recipes

Boiled 72Cream 68French 58Cooked 45Fruit 41Chicken 31 See all 528 →

You might also like

Chicken SaladChicken Salad623 recipesTomato SaladTomato Salad179 recipesCold SlawCold Slaw160 recipesFrench DressingFrench Dressing58 recipes