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Dessert

French Dressing

A vinaigrette dressing made with sugar, lemon juice, paprika, tarragon vinegar, cayenne pepper, olive oil, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and tarragon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,137 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

French Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a bowl, blend sugar, paprika, cayenne pepper, and salt with the lemon juice.

  2. Add tarragon vinegar and heat the mixture slowly.

  3. Once heated, add twice as much olive oil as the liquid mixture.

  4. Stir well and let it cool before using.

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. Lemon + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,137 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  3. Tarragon + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Tarragon + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,547 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Lemon + olivetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,922 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Olive oil
Provides fat and body, forming the bulk of the emulsified dressing.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the rich oil.
Tarragon vinegar
Adds acidity and a distinct herbal aroma to the dressing.
Sugar
Adds a touch of sweetness to balance the acidity.

The step that matters

Adding the olive oil to the heated mixture. Oil must be added to the warm acidic mixture gradually and stirred well so it disperses into tiny droplets. Poorly combined oil separates quickly and leaves the dressing greasy rather than smooth.

Swap the tarragon

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

  1. Tarragonthe original
  2. Parsleyfits about as well
  3. Basilfits about as well
  4. Dillfits about as well

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