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English Sauce for Salad, Cold Meat, or Cold Fish

A sauce made from boiled egg yolks, cream, vinegar, mustard, olive oil, and seasonings, used as a dressing for salad, cold meat, or cold fish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Eliza Acton · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 18 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

English Sauce for Salad, Cold Meat, or Cold Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the yolks

  1. Boil eggs for at least fifteen minutes, keep them covered with water, and let them become quite cold before removing shells.

  2. Break up the yolks and mash them into a paste with a wooden spoon.

Make the dressing

  1. Add a small saltspoonful of salt, a few grains of fine cayenne, and a teaspoonful of cold water; mix well.

  2. Gradually stir in a quarter of a pint of sweet cream, then a tablespoonful of strong chili vinegar, and enough common or French vinegar to acidulate the mixture.

  3. Optionally, replace the cream with six tablespoonsful of olive oil, adding it in small portions and stirring briskly until the sauce resembles custard; omit water if using oil.

  4. Add optional ingredients such as eschalot vinegar, Harvey’s sauce, anchovy essence, French mustard, tarragon vinegar, or bruised garlic.

Variation

  1. For a variation, combine two well‑boiled potatoes (passed through a sieve), a teaspoonful of mustard, two teaspoonsful of salt, one teaspoon of anchovy essence, a quarter teaspoon of very finely‑chopped onions, three tablespoonsful of oil, one teaspoon of vinegar, and the yolks of two hard‑boiled eggs; stir thoroughly before serving.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

473Calories
13 gProtein
25 gFat
51 gCarbs

Counts 10 of 11 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 10 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Potato1 medium (173g) baked161
Olive Oil1 tbsp (14g)119
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Cream1 tbsp (15ml) heavy51
Onion1 medium (110g)44
Chili1 tsp (2.7g)8
Cayenne1 tsp (1.8g)6
Vinegar1 tbsp (15ml) distilled3
Mustard1 tsp (5g) yellow3
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.

By Eliza Acton. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Mustard + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  3. Olive + potatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,458 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Mustard + potatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,340 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Cooked yolks mash into a paste that thickens and emulsifies the dressing.
Sweet cream
Adds richness and body, giving the dressing a smooth, creamy texture.
Olive oil
Fat that emulsifies into the yolks, thickening the sauce to a custard-like texture.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens flavour and balances the richness of the yolks and fat.

The step that matters

Adding the oil or cream gradually. Fat must be added slowly and stirred briskly so it emulsifies into the yolk paste; adding it all at once can split the sauce and prevent it thickening smoothly.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, vinegar, mustard, onion, olive, egg):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, vinegar, mustard, onion, olive, 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.

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