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Salad

Salad Dressing

A thickened vinaigrette made with egg yolks, sugar, mustard, vinegar, butter, and cornstarch.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 ↓

Salad Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. Beat the yolks of the eggs in a bowl.

  2. Add sugar, mustard, salt, cayenne pepper, and cornstarch; mix well.

  3. In a saucepan, heat vinegar and butter until boiling.

  4. Pour the hot vinegar and butter mixture over the egg mixture.

  5. Transfer everything to a double boiler and let it thicken.

  6. If the vinegar is too strong, dilute it with water.

Serve

  1. Once cold, serve equal portions of whipped cream and dressing on salad.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  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
Emulsify and thicken the dressing as they cook gently with the hot liquid.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the dressing.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that sharpens the flavour and balances the richness.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the sharp vinegar.
Cornstarch
Helps thicken the dressing and stabilise it during gentle heating.

The step that matters

Thickening over the double boiler. Egg yolks set at a moderate temperature and can scramble if overheated. Gentle, indirect heat in a double boiler lets the mixture thicken smoothly without curdling.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardthe original
  3. Cucumberfits about as well
  4. Shallotfits less well

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