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Boiled Salad Dressing

A boiled salad dressing made with sugar, mustard, salt, corn starch, eggs, cream, vinegar, and olive oil.

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 sugar, mustard, salt, and corn starch in a bowl.

  2. Beat the mixture into the yolks of the eggs.

  3. Add cream, vinegar, and the beaten egg whites.

  4. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly, until thickened.

  5. Remove from heat and stir in olive oil.

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 + olivetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

  4. Corn + olivetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,502 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Vinegar + olivetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,297 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks thicken the dressing as they cook and set, giving it a rich body.
Corn starch
Gelatinizes when heated, thickening the dressing and keeping it smooth.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the dressing its tangy flavor.
Cream
Adds fat and moisture, softening the flavor and texture of the dressing.
Olive oil
Adds fat and a smooth, mellow richness once stirred in off the heat.

The step that matters

Cook over low heat, stirring constantly, until thickened. Egg yolks can scramble if heated too fast or left unstirred. Low heat with constant stirring lets the starch and egg proteins thicken the dressing gently and evenly.

Swap the mustard

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, corn, egg, cream, vinegar, olive. 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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