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Salad

Sherry's Salad

A vinaigrette dressing made with oil, vinegar, powdered sugar, onions, parsley, red and green peppers, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Sherry's Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. Mix the oil, vinegar, powdered sugar, onion, parsley, red pepper, green pepper, and salt in a bowl.

  2. Transfer the mixture to a pint Mason jar and let it stand for at least 1 hour before serving.

Serve

  1. Just before serving, shake the jar vigorously for 5 minutes.

  2. Pour the dressing over crisp lettuce leaves.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Vinegar + oniontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Oil
Forms the body of the dressing and carries the flavor of the other ingredients.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the oil.
Onion
Adds sharp, aromatic flavor that mellows as it stands.
Parsley
Adds fresh, herbal aroma and color.

The step that matters

Shaking the jar just before serving. Oil and vinegar separate on standing, so vigorous shaking re-emulsifies them into a temporarily blended dressing. Shaking too early or too gently leaves the dressing oily and uneven.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, sugar, parsley, 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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