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Salad

Salad Dressing

A thick salad dressing made with eggs, butter, mustard, vinegar, water, salt, sugar, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Salad Dressing

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 ↓

Salad Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing base

  1. Beat the eggs in a bowl.

  2. Add the softened butter and mustard mixed with a little water.

  3. Stir in the vinegar and boiling water.

  4. Place the bowl on top of a tea kettle and stir until thick like cream.

Finish and serve

  1. In a separate saucepan, warm the vinegar.

  2. Add the beaten eggs and stir for a few minutes until it thickens like boiled custard.

  3. Mix in the salt, sugar, mustard, pepper, and softened butter.

  4. Stir well and pour into a serving container.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

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

  3. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Thicken as they cook, giving the dressing a custard-like body.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy mouthfeel to the dressing.
Vinegar
Provides the sharp acidity that balances the sweetness and richness.
Mustard
Adds sharp flavour and helps emulsify the fat into the mixture.
Sugar
Softens the sharpness of the vinegar, balancing the acidity.

The step that matters

Thickening the eggs over the kettle. Egg proteins set gently with steady, moderate heat. If the mixture gets too hot or is stirred too little, the eggs can scramble or curdle instead of thickening smoothly.

Swap the mustard

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, vinegar, sugar, 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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