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Salad

Boiled Salad Dressing

A boiled dressing made with salt, mustard, sugar, flour, egg yolks, butter, milk, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Boiled Salad Dressing

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Boiled Salad Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mix the dry ingredients together.

  2. Add the slightly beaten egg yolks, melted butter, milk, and vinegar slowly.

Cook and finish

  1. Cook over boiling water, stirring constantly, until the mixture thickens.

  2. Strain the dressing and let it cool.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Mustard + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,066 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the dressing as they set during cooking and add richness.
Flour
Stabilises the mixture and helps it thicken smoothly without curdling.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the dressing its tang.
Butter
Adds fat for a smoother, richer mouthfeel.
Milk
Adds moisture and body, softening the dressing's flavour.

The step that matters

Cook over boiling water, stirring constantly. Egg yolks can scramble if they overheat or sit still. Constant stirring over gentle, indirect heat lets the yolks and starch thicken the dressing evenly into a smooth custard-like texture.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Shallotfits about as well
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, flour, egg, butter, milk, 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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