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Salad

French Dressing

A vinaigrette dressing made with salad oil, vinegar, salt, cayenne pepper, and onion juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

French Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

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

  2. Add salt, cayenne pepper, and onion juice.

  3. Mix well and beat until the dressing thickens.

Dress the salad

  1. Wash and dry lettuce cups.

  2. Pour the dressing over the lettuce and toss gently with a salad fork and spoon.

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. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  2. Vinegar + oniontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Vinegar + peppertop 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

Salad oil
Forms the base of the dressing and carries the flavour and body of the emulsion.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the richness of the oil.
Onion juice
Adds savoury, aromatic flavour to the dressing.

The step that matters

Beating until the dressing thickens. Beating breaks the oil into tiny droplets suspended in the vinegar, creating a temporary emulsion. If beating is too brief, the oil and vinegar separate quickly and the dressing stays thin and runny.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Cabbagefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, pepper. 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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