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French Dressing

A vinaigrette with salt, curry powder, cayenne pepper, Darwin vinegar, plain vinegar, and olive oil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Vinegar and olive 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

Prepare

  1. Rub a bowl with garlic and place a small piece of ice inside.

  2. Add salt, curry powder, and cayenne pepper to the bowl and mix well.

  3. Stir in Darwin vinegar and plain vinegar, then mix again thoroughly.

Finish the dressing

  1. Add olive oil according to taste and beat with a fork until perfectly blended.

  2. Adjust salt if necessary 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. Vinegar + olivetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,297 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

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

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

  3. 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

Olive oil
Forms the body of the dressing and carries fat-soluble flavors.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the rich oil.

The step that matters

Adding the olive oil. Oil and vinegar are immiscible, so it must be beaten in gradually while the mixture is well stirred. Adding it all at once can leave the dressing separated, with oil floating on the acid.

“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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