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Boiled Dressing

A thickened dressing made with mustard, sugar, butter, flour, egg yolks, vinegar, and optional cayenne and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Boiled Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. In a bowl, mix dry mustard with boiling water.

  2. Add sugar, melted butter, salt, flour, and beaten egg yolks; mix well.

  3. Heat vinegar and add it to the mixture; stir thoroughly.

  4. Cook in a double boiler until thick.

Serve

  1. Add whipped cream to taste before serving.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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 gentle cooking and add richness.
Flour
Thickens the liquid so the dressing becomes smooth and holds its body.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the dressing its sharp, tangy flavour.
Melted butter
Adds fat that makes the dressing smoother and richer on the palate.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with gentle sweetness.

The step that matters

Cook in a double boiler until thick. Egg yolks thicken and can scramble if overheated. Gentle, indirect heat from a double boiler lets the dressing thicken smoothly without curdling.

Swap the mustard

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

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

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