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Salad

Thousand Island Salad Dressing

A vinaigrette-style dressing made with olive oil, citrus juice, onion, olives, parsley, salt, paprika, Worcestershire sauce, and mustard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Thousand Island Salad Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine all ingredients in a glass jar with a tight lid.

  2. Shake until smooth and slightly thickened.

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 + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

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

  3. Olive + parsleytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,649 recipes

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

  4. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  5. Olive + lemontop 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 that gives the dressing richness and a smooth, body-rich mouthfeel.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and balances the richness of the oil.
Orange juice
Adds acidity and a touch of sweetness that softens the sharpness of the lemon.
Grated onion
Contributes pungent aroma and sharp flavor that gives the dressing its savory bite.

The step that matters

Shake until smooth and slightly thickened. Shaking breaks the oil into tiny droplets dispersed in the acidic juices, forming a temporary emulsion. Too little shaking lets the oil separate into layers. The mustard helps the mixture hold together longer.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (olive, lemon, orange, parsley, sauce, mustard):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Broccolifits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against olive, lemon, orange, parsley, sauce, mustard. 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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