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Salad

Tomato Dressing

A dressing made with eggs, sugar, salt, mustard, sweet cream, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 ↓

Tomato Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Beat the eggs well together.

  2. Add sugar, salt, mustard, cream, and vinegar.

  3. Place the bowl in a basin of boiling water.

  4. Stir until it thickens to the consistency of cream.

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. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + mustardtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,424 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Coagulate with gentle heat to thicken the dressing into a creamy texture.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and balances the sweetness.
Sweet cream
Adds fat and richness, giving the dressing a smoother, softer mouthfeel.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the acidity of the vinegar.
Prepared mustard
Adds sharp flavour and helps emulsify the dressing.

The step that matters

Stir until it thickens to the consistency of cream. Egg proteins set gradually over gentle heat. Overheating or stirring too little can curdle the eggs, while stopping too early leaves the dressing thin.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Mustardthe original
  2. Cucumberfits about as well
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Horseradishfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, cream, vinegar. 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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