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Salad

French Dressing

A vinaigrette with olive oil, vinegar, salt, sugar, white pepper, and crumbled Roquefort cheese.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Olive and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,297 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, fruity. The science ↓

French Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. In a bowl, combine olive oil and vinegar.

  2. Add salt, sugar, and white pepper; stir for 5 minutes.

  3. Fold in the crumbled Roquefort cheese.

Serve

  1. Serve over lettuce just 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.

  1. Olive + vinegartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,297 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

  2. Olive + roquefort cheesetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (apple, fatty).

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

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

  4. Vinegar + roquefort cheesetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  5. Vinegar + white peppertop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,154 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Olive oil
Forms the body of the dressing and carries flavour, giving it a smooth mouthfeel.
Vinegar
Provides the sharp acidity that defines the dressing and cuts through the oil.
Sugar
Adds gentle sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Roquefort cheese
Adds a strong, salty, tangy flavour and richness to the dressing.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against olive, vinegar, sugar, roquefort cheese. 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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