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French Dressing

A simple vinaigrette dressing made with salt, mustard, cayenne pepper, olive oil, and lemon or lime juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon 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 ↓

French Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a bowl, combine salt, mustard, and cayenne pepper.

  2. Gradually add olive oil while stirring constantly.

  3. Slowly add lemon or lime juice while stirring.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

  5. Mustard + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,816 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 or salad oil
Forms the bulk of the dressing and gives it body and a smooth, rich mouthfeel.
Mustard
Acts as an emulsifier, helping the oil and acidic juice stay blended instead of separating.
Lemon or lime juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the richness of the oil.

The step that matters

Gradually adding the oil while stirring. Oil must be dispersed into tiny droplets so the mustard can hold it in suspension. Adding it too fast lets the oil pool and separate, so the dressing stays greasy and thin.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, 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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