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Salad

Hygia Salad Dressing

A chilled salad dressing made with eggs, whipped cream, lemon juice, sugar, olive oil, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and olive 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 ↓

Hygia Salad Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Beat the egg yolks until very stiff.

  2. Slowly add the olive oil and lemon juice while beating continuously until thick.

  3. Fold in the beaten egg whites, salt, and sugar to taste.

  4. Gently mix in the whipped cream until very stiff.

  5. Chill in the refrigerator until ready to serve.

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. Lemon + olivetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,922 recipes

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

  2. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  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 + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Eggs
Egg yolks emulsify with the oil and lemon juice to thicken the dressing, while the beaten whites add lightness.
Olive oil
Adds fat that, emulsified with the yolks, gives the dressing a smooth, rich body.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that balances the richness of the oil and eggs and helps keep the emulsion stable.
Whipped cream
Adds moisture and airy fat that softens the dressing's texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that rounds out the acidity of the lemon.

The step that matters

Adding the oil and lemon juice slowly while beating. Oil must be added gradually while beating so it disperses into the egg yolks as tiny droplets. Adding it too fast breaks the emulsion, and the dressing stays thin or separates instead of thickening.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Strawberryfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, cream, sugar, olive. 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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