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Salad

Oil Salad Dressing

A vinaigrette made with egg yolks, mustard, lemon juice, vinegar, oil, cayenne pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Oil Salad Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. In a bowl, combine the pulverized yolk of the hard boiled egg and the raw egg yolk.

  2. Add mustard, cayenne pepper, and salt; stir well.

  3. Mix in the strained lemon juice and vinegar.

  4. Gradually add the oil, starting with a little, until fully incorporated.

Finish and serve

  1. Just before serving, fold in a little whipped cream.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Mustard + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,816 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Pepper + vinegartop 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

Egg yolks
Emulsifiers that bind the oil and acid into a thick, stable dressing.
Mustard
Helps hold the oil and vinegar emulsion together and adds sharpness.
Oil
Forms the body of the dressing when slowly whisked into the yolks.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the richness of the oil.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens flavor and helps stabilize the emulsion.

The step that matters

Gradually add the oil, starting with a little, until fully incorporated.. Oil must be added slowly so tiny droplets disperse and are coated by egg yolk emulsifiers. Adding it too fast can break the emulsion, leaving a greasy, separated dressing.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Limefits about as well
  3. Avocadofits about as well
  4. Cherryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, mustard, pepper, vinegar, cream. 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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