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Salad

Cream Salad Dressing

A creamy dressing made with vinegar, mustard, sugar, white pepper, eggs, and thick cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 ↓

Cream Salad Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Heat the vinegar in a double boiler.

  2. In a bowl, mix the mustard, sugar, salt, and white pepper.

Make the dressing

  1. Add the eggs and beat until light.

  2. Stir in the thick cream and the hot vinegar.

  3. Return the mixture to the boiler and cook until thick and smooth.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

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

  4. Mustard + sugartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,424 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Vinegar + white peppertop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,154 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
Thicken the dressing as they set gently with heat, giving it body.
Vinegar
Adds the sharp acidity that gives the dressing its tang.
Thick cream
Adds richness and fat, producing a smooth, mellow texture.
Mustard
Adds sharp flavour and helps hold the dressing together.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the acidity of the vinegar.

The step that matters

Cooking the mixture in the double boiler. Eggs thicken with gentle heat but scramble if they get too hot. Cooking over simmering water and stirring steadily keeps the dressing smooth and thick rather than curdled.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, mustard, sugar, egg, 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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