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Salad

Sister Mag's Salad Dressing

A salad dressing made with egg yolks, butter, mustard, 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 ↓

Sister Mag's Salad Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks and salt together.

  2. Add the cream, mustard, butter, and vinegar, and mix well.

Cook the dressing

  1. Pour the mixture into a saucepan and stir over low heat until it boils.

  2. Cook until the dressing reaches the consistency of thin starch.

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Butter + mustardtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,003 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Butter + vinegartop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,513 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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 heat and help bind the fat and liquid together.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the dressing.
Vinegar
Provides the sharp acidity that gives the dressing its tang.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, softening the sharpness of the vinegar.

The step that matters

Cook over low heat and stop at the right thickness. Egg yolks thicken through gentle heat, but if they get too hot they can scramble and turn grainy. Stop cooking once the dressing reaches the thin-starch consistency.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Chivefits about as well
  2. Potatofits about as well
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, 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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