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Salad

Boiled Salad Dressing

A boiled dressing made with salt, egg, mustard, sugar, butter, cream, flour, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Boiled Salad Dressing

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 ↓

Boiled Salad Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Mix ingredients in the order given.

  2. Add vinegar very slowly.

  3. Cover over boiling water, stirring constantly until thick.

  4. Strain and cool.

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

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Mustard + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,066 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Egg
Thickens the dressing as it cooks and gives it body and richness.
Butter
Adds fat for a smooth, rich mouthfeel in the dressing.
Cream or rich milk
Adds fat and moisture, making the dressing creamy and mellow.
Flour
Helps thicken the dressing and keeps it from splitting as it heats.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the dressing its tangy flavour.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with a touch of sweetness.

The step that matters

Adding the vinegar slowly. Pouring vinegar in quickly can curdle the egg and cause a lumpy dressing. Adding it slowly while mixing lets the egg blend in evenly, so the dressing cooks smooth.

Swap the mustard

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

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

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