Skip to main content
Main

Boiled Dressing IV

A boiled dressing made with butter, flour, sugar, salt, milk, vinegar, mustard, cayenne pepper, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Warren, Pa. Presbyterian church. Second auxiliary missionary society. [from old catalog] · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and milk 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 IV

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Let butter get hot in a sauce pan.

  2. Add flour and stir until smooth, being careful not to brown.

  3. Add the milk and boil up.

  4. Place the sauce pan in another of hot water.

Finish the dressing

  1. Beat eggs, salt, pepper, sugar and mustard together and add vinegar.

  2. Stir this into the boiling mixture and stir to the consistency of soft custard.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

859Calories
28 gProtein
27 gFat
124 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 11 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Chili1 tsp (2.7g)8
Cayenne1 tsp (1.8g)6
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Vinegar1 tbsp (15ml) distilled3
Mustard1 tsp (5g) yellow3
Salt1 tsp (6g)0

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

By Warren, Pa. Presbyterian church. Second auxiliary missionary society. [from old catalog]. 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + mustardtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,066 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Butter
Melts with the flour to form a smooth base for the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth sauce when cooked.
Milk
Forms the liquid body of the sauce.
Eggs
Thicken the sauce into a soft custard as they cook.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the dressing its tang.

The step that matters

Stir the egg mixture into the boiling base. Eggs thicken by setting when heated. Adding them to a very hot mixture while stirring constantly helps them blend smoothly, while stirring only until soft custard consistency is reached keeps the eggs from overcooking and curdling.

Swap the mustard

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

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

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

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes