Name: Sweet Salad Dressing
Ingredients: 1 cup sugar; Thin shaving of lemon rind; 4 cups water; 2 egg yolks; 3 tablespoons lemon juice

Why it works: Sugar and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Sweet Salad Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

Combine water, sugar, and lemon rind in a saucepan.
Boil for 3 minutes to make a syrup.

Make the custard

Remove from heat and add egg yolks, stirring to cook into a soft custard.
Stir in lemon juice, then strain the mixture.

Cool and serve

Allow to cool before serving.

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.

Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together53,532 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together44,316 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Sugar and lemon 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

Sugar: Dissolves into the water to form a sweet syrup base.
Egg yolks: Thicken the mixture into a soft custard as their proteins set with gentle heat.
Lemon juice: Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness of the dressing.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolks off the heat. Egg yolk proteins set at roughly 65 to 70°C. Adding them to very hot syrup can scramble them into lumps, so remove the pan from the heat first and stir steadily while the yolks thicken the mixture into a smooth custard.