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Salad

Salad Dressing

A creamy salad dressing made with raw egg yolks, vinegar, butter, mustard, pepper, and whipped cream.

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

Why it works: Vinegar and mustard 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 ↓

Salad Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. In a bowl, beat the yolks of raw eggs with vinegar until thoroughly mixed.

  2. Place the mixture on the stove and stir constantly until it thickens enough to drop heavily from a spoon.

  3. Remove from heat and add butter, stirring until smooth.

  4. Season with salt, dry mustard, and pepper to taste.

Serve

  1. When ready to use, thin the dressing with a little whipped cream to achieve the desired consistency.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken and emulsify the dressing as they cook, giving it a creamy, smooth body.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that balances the richness of the yolks and butter.
Butter
Adds fat that makes the cooked dressing smooth and rich.
Whipped cream
Lightens the thickened dressing and adjusts its consistency when thinning.

The step that matters

Stirring the yolks over heat. Egg yolks thicken from gentle heat but can scramble if overheated or left unstirred. Constant stirring spreads the heat evenly so the mixture thickens smoothly instead of curdling.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Potatofits about as well
  3. Mustardthe original
  4. Spinachfits about as well

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