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Salad

Boiled Salad Dressing

A custard-like salad dressing made by boiling sugar, mustard, olive oil, salt, eggs, vinegar, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Boiled 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 ↓

Boiled Salad Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a bowl, stir together sugar, mustard, olive oil, and salt until smooth.

  2. Add the well-beaten eggs and stir well.

  3. Mix in the vinegar and milk.

  4. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture thickens to the consistency of custard.

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. Mustard + olivetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Olive + vinegartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,297 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

  4. Olive + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,828 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Thicken the dressing as they set during gentle cooking, giving it a custard-like body.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the dressing its sharp, tangy flavour.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness, diluting the dressing to a creamy consistency.
Olive oil
Adds fat, giving the dressing richness and a smoother mouthfeel.
Mustard
Adds sharp flavour and helps emulsify the fat into the mixture.

The step that matters

Cooking until it thickens. Egg proteins set around 160°F (71°C), so heat must stay low and stirring constant. Too much heat scrambles the eggs into lumps, while too little leaves the dressing thin.

Swap the mustard

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, olive, egg, vinegar, milk. 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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