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Boiled Dressing

A boiled mustard-based dressing thickened with flour and butter, finished with egg and milk or sour cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl.

Make the dressing

  1. Add the beaten egg, butter, milk, and vinegar to the dry mixture.

  2. Cook in a double boiler until thick.

  3. Beat with a hand mixer until smooth.

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. Milk + buttertop 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. Milk + flourtop 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
Thickens the dressing as its proteins set with gentle heat, adding richness and body.
Flour
Thickens the liquid into a smooth, stable sauce as its starch swells when heated.
Butter
Adds fat for a rich, smooth mouthfeel and a silky texture.
Milk or sour cream
Provides the liquid base and moisture that the thickeners hydrate in.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and cuts the richness of the dressing.

The step that matters

Cook in a double boiler until thick. Egg proteins can scramble if the mixture gets too hot too fast. A double boiler applies gentle, indirect heat, so the egg and flour thicken smoothly without curdling.

Swap the mustard

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

  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 egg, vinegar, sugar, milk, flour, butter. 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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