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Salad

Salad Cream

A creamy salad dressing made with mustard, sugar, eggs, vinegar, butter, milk, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Salad Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a bowl, mix mustard, sugar, and salt.

  2. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs and add vinegar.

Combine

  1. Melt the butter and combine it with the egg mixture.

  2. Gradually stir in the milk until well combined.

  3. Add the mustard mixture and mix thoroughly.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Egg yolks emulsify the fat and liquid, giving the dressing a thick, smooth body.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a silky mouthfeel.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that gives the dressing its sharp, tangy flavour.
Mustard
Adds sharp flavour and helps hold the emulsion together.
Sugar
Balances the acidity and mustard with gentle sweetness.
Milk
Adds moisture and lightens the texture of the dressing.

The step that matters

Gradually stir in the milk until well combined.. Adding liquid slowly lets the egg and fat emulsion absorb it evenly. Pouring it in all at once can break the emulsion, leaving the dressing thin or separated.

Swap the mustard

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

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

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