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Sidney Smith’s Recipe for a Salad Dressing

A dressing made from mashed potatoes, mustard, olive oil, vinegar, egg yolks, anchovy sauce, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Anchovy and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,057 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Sidney Smith’s Recipe for a Salad Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Pass the potatoes through a kitchen sieve.

  2. Add the mustard and mix well.

  3. Gradually stir in the olive oil and vinegar.

  4. Incorporate the pounded egg yolks.

  5. Add salt and pepper to taste.

  6. Finally, stir in the anchovy sauce.

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. Anchovy + saucetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Potato + olivetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,458 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  3. Potato + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,340 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Potatoes
Sieved to a smooth base that thickens the dressing and gives it body.
Olive oil
Adds richness and fat that emulsifies with the other ingredients into a creamy texture.
Egg yolks
Lecithin in the yolks helps emulsify the oil into the dressing, keeping it smooth.
Mustard
Its natural emulsifiers help hold the oil and liquids together and add sharpness.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and balances the richness of the oil.

The step that matters

Gradually stir in the olive oil and vinegar. Adding oil slowly while stirring lets it break into tiny droplets that stay suspended, forming a stable emulsion. Pouring it in too fast can cause the dressing to separate and turn greasy.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Horseradishfits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mustard, olive, vinegar, egg, anchovy, sauce, 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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