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Salad

Salad Dressing

A vinaigrette-style dressing made with mustard, sugar, oil, milk, vinegar, cayenne pepper, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Salad Dressing

Why it works: Mustard and vinegar 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

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine mustard and sugar in a salad bowl.

  2. Add salad oil drop by drop while stirring continuously.

  3. Gradually mix in milk and vinegar to prevent curdling.

  4. Season with cayenne pepper and coarse sea salt to taste.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

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

  4. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Made mustard
Acts as an emulsifier that helps hold the oil and vinegar together.
Salad oil
Provides fat and a smooth, rich body to the dressing.
Vinegar
Adds acidity for sharpness that balances the richness of the oil.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that rounds out the sharpness of the vinegar.
Milk
Adds moisture and dilutes the vinegar, keeping the dressing smooth.

The step that matters

Add the salad oil drop by drop while stirring continuously. The oil must be broken into tiny droplets that the mustard can coat and hold in suspension. Pouring too fast lets the droplets merge and separate, so the dressing breaks instead of staying creamy.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardthe original
  3. Potatofits less well
  4. Cucumberfits less well

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