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Salad

Salad Dressing

A vinaigrette-style dressing made with eggs, sugar, vinegar, ginger, pepper, salt, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Salad Dressing

Why it works: Ginger and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,800 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Salad Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Beat the eggs in a bowl.

  2. Add sugar, vinegar, ginger, pepper, and salt; mix well.

Cook and finish

  1. Pour the mixture into a double boiler and cook over simmering water, stirring constantly with a whisk until it becomes light.

  2. Add butter just before removing from heat.

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. Ginger + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,800 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + gingertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together14,054 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Sugar and ginger barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 14,054 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

Eggs
Their proteins set as they heat, thickening the dressing and giving it body.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Provides acidity, giving the dressing its tangy flavour.
Butter
Adds fat, enriching the flavour and smoothing the texture.

The step that matters

Cooking over simmering water while whisking constantly. Egg proteins set when heated too quickly, so the mixture can scramble and turn grainy. Gentle heat over simmering water and constant whisking keep it smooth and evenly thickened.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Gingerthe original

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