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Salad

Simple Salad Dressing

A simple vinaigrette-style dressing made with sugar, flour, vinegar, water, egg, butter, and optional mustard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Simple Salad Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine one tablespoonful sugar, half teaspoonful flour, one teaspoonful salt, dash of red pepper, and celery salt, then stir all together well.

  2. Add one beaten egg, four tablespoonfuls vinegar, and two tablespoonfuls water.

  3. Boil a minute or two while stirring constantly until it becomes a paste.

  4. Add butter the size of a walnut, and cream or olive oil enough to thin it to a proper consistency.

  5. Add a little mustard if desired.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

719Calories
20 gProtein
21 gFat
110 gCarbs

Counts 8 of 9 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 8 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Walnut1 walnut half (4g)26
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Vinegar1 tbsp (15ml) distilled3
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Waternot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

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. See the original page.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + walnuttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Walnut + peppertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,039 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Tea + walnuttop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-ethyl-2,5-dimethylpyrazine (roasted, nutty).

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 it cooks and helps bind it into a smooth paste.
Flour
Thickens the mixture so it turns into a paste when boiled.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the dressing its sharp, tangy flavour.
Butter
Adds richness and a smoother, creamier texture to the dressing.

The step that matters

Boil while stirring constantly. Egg proteins and starch thicken the mixture as it heats, but if it sits still it can scorch or turn lumpy. Constant stirring keeps the heat even so it becomes a smooth paste.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Almondfits about as well
  2. Chestnutfits about as well
  3. Walnutthe original
  4. Beansfits about as well

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