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Cream Salad Dressing

A creamy dressing made with egg yolks, butter, cream, vinegar, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cream Salad Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Mash the hard-boiled yolks until fine.

  2. Gradually mix in the raw egg yolk to form a smooth paste.

  3. Add the salt, pepper, and melted butter, blending well.

  4. Slowly incorporate the cream while stirring continuously.

  5. Gradually add the vinegar and mix until combined.

  6. Refrigerate before use.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

  5. Cream + peppertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together21,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Cream and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 21,449 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Hard-boiled egg yolks
Mashed into a fine base that gives the dressing body and a rich, creamy texture.
Raw egg yolk
Its proteins bind with the fats to form a smooth, stable emulsion.
Melted butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel.
Thick cream
Adds fat and moisture, making the dressing lighter and more pourable.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the richness.

The step that matters

Incorporate the cream and vinegar slowly. Adding liquids gradually while stirring lets the yolks and fat form a stable emulsion. Dumping them in at once can cause the dressing to separate or turn thin and greasy.

“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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