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Salad

Salad Dressing with Oil

A vinaigrette made with vinegar, egg yolks, mustard, sugar, salt, and oil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Vinegar and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,067 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Salad Dressing with Oil

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a dish, combine the vinegar and egg yolks.

  2. Add the salt, sugar, and mustard.

  3. Slowly beat in the oil until well mixed.

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. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Sugar + mustardtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,424 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Egg + mustardtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,210 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Lecithin in the yolks helps hold the oil and vinegar together as a stable emulsion.
Oil
Supplies the fat that gives the dressing its body and smooth, rich mouthfeel.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that gives the dressing its sharp, tangy flavour.
Mustard
Its natural emulsifiers help keep the oil dispersed and the dressing from separating.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.

The step that matters

Slowly beat in the oil. Adding the oil gradually lets the beaten yolks break it into tiny droplets that stay suspended. If the oil goes in too fast, the emulsion can break and the dressing will separate.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Mustardthe original
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Cucumberfits about as well
  4. Shallotfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, egg, sugar. 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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