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Salad

Cooked Salad Dressing

A thickened salad dressing made with flour, sugar, mustard, egg yolks, vinegar, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and vinegar 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 ↓

Cooked Salad Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Mix the flour, salt, sugar, red pepper, and mustard in a bowl.

  2. Add the water and stir until well combined.

Combine and cook

  1. Beat the egg yolks in a separate bowl, then add the vinegar and mix.

  2. Combine the egg mixture with the flour mixture.

  3. Strain the combined mixture into a double boiler.

  4. Add the butter and cook over simmering water until thick.

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.

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. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

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

Flour
Thickens the dressing as it cooks, giving it body and a smooth, stable texture.
Egg yolks
Set during gentle cooking to thicken the dressing and add richness and emulsifying power.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the dressing its sharp, tangy flavor.
Butter
Adds fat for a rich mouthfeel and smoother, silkier texture.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness.

The step that matters

Cook over simmering water until thick. Egg yolks thicken through gentle heat but can curdle or scramble if overheated. Cooking over simmering water in a double boiler keeps the temperature moderate, so the dressing thickens smoothly rather than turning grainy.

Swap the mustard

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

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

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