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Salad

French Dressing

A simple vinaigrette made with olive oil, lemon juice, onion, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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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 ↓

French Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a bowl, combine olive oil and lemon juice.

  2. Add onion juice or chopped onions.

  3. Season with coarse sea salt to taste.

  4. Whisk until well blended.

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

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

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

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

  3. Lemon + oniontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,646 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Olive oil
Provides the fat that gives the dressing body and a smooth, coating mouthfeel.
Lemon juice
Supplies the acidity that gives the dressing its bright, sharp flavour.
Onion
Adds a sharp, pungent aroma and savoury bite to the dressing.

The step that matters

Whisk until well blended. Oil and lemon juice do not mix on their own. Whisking breaks the oil into tiny droplets that stay suspended in the acid, giving a more uniform dressing. Without enough whisking, it separates quickly.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Tomatofits better
  2. Kalefits better
  3. Broccolifits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against 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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