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Salad

Salad Dressing

A vinaigrette-style dressing made with mustard, cayenne pepper, oil, salt, sugar, eggs, milk, and vinegar.

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

  1. In a bowl, mix mustard and cayenne pepper.

  2. Gradually stir in olive oil or melted butter.

  3. Add salt and sugar, then mix well.

  4. Incorporate the beaten eggs and mix thoroughly.

  5. Add milk or cream and vinegar.

  6. Cook the mixture over low heat, stirring constantly, until it thickens like soft custard.

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

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

  4. Olive + vinegartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,297 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

  5. Pepper + olivetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,263 recipes

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

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 during gentle cooking, giving it a custard-like body.
Olive oil or melted butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the dressing a smooth, rounded mouthfeel.
Milk or cream
Adds moisture and richness, helping the dressing become smooth and pourable.
Vinegar
Adds acidity, giving the dressing its sharp, tangy flavour.
Mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavour and helps emulsify the fat into the mixture.

The step that matters

Cook over low heat, stirring constantly. Egg proteins set gently around 160°F, so low heat with constant stirring thickens the custard smoothly. Higher heat or neglect can curdle the eggs into lumps.

Swap the mustard

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

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

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