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Salad

Salad Dressing

A thick, creamy dressing made with egg, sugar, butter, mustard, vinegar, and salt.

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

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 ↓

Salad Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Beat together the egg, sugar, butter, salt, mustard, and vinegar in a bowl.

  2. Pour the mixture into a saucepan and heat gradually until it comes to a boil.

  3. Continue to cook until the mixture 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.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg
Its proteins set as the mixture heats, thickening the dressing into a creamy body.
Vinegar
Provides the sharp acidity that defines the dressing's tangy flavour.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother, rounder mouthfeel.
Mixed mustard
Adds pungent flavour and helps keep the fat and liquid blended.

The step that matters

Heat gradually and stop once thickened. Egg proteins set as they warm. Heating too fast or cooking too long can overcook them, curdling the dressing instead of leaving it smooth and creamy.

Swap the mustard

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

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

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