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Salad

Dressing Fob Lettuce

An egg-based dressing for lettuce made with eggs, olive oil, vinegar, mustard, and seasonings.

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

Dressing Fob Lettuce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Hard-boil the eggs.

  2. Chop the egg whites finely and mash the yolks.

  3. Add salt, sugar, mustard, and red pepper to the yolks.

  4. Gradually stir in the olive oil until smooth.

  5. Thin the mixture with vinegar to the consistency of mayonnaise.

  6. Fold in the chopped egg whites.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Mustard + olivetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

  5. Pepper + olivetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,263 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Emulsify the olive oil and form the creamy body of the dressing.
Olive oil
Adds richness and smooth fat that gives the dressing its body.
Vinegar
Adds acidity and thins the mixture to a mayonnaise-like consistency.

The step that matters

Gradually stir in the olive oil until smooth. Adding the oil slowly lets the mashed yolk emulsify it, so the dressing stays smooth and thick instead of separating into greasy droplets.

Swap the mustard

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

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

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