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Salad

Salad Dressing

A thickened salad dressing made with eggs, milk, vinegar, mustard, sugar, salt, cornstarch, and water.

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

Prepare

  1. In a saucepan, beat the eggs.

  2. Add the milk, vinegar, and water, and beat until combined.

  3. In a separate bowl, mix the sugar, salt, mustard, and cornstarch.

Cook the dressing

  1. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the egg mixture while stirring to prevent curdling.

  2. Place the saucepan over low heat and cook until thickened, stirring constantly.

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

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

  3. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Sugar + mustardtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,424 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Eggs
Thicken the dressing as they set with gentle heat and add richness.
Cornstarch
Thickens the liquid as it heats, giving the dressing body.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the dressing its tang.

The step that matters

Gradually add the dry ingredients to the egg mixture while stirring. Adding the dry mixture slowly and stirring constantly spreads it evenly through the eggs, so the proteins do not clump or curdle as the mixture heats. Cooking over low heat also keeps the eggs from scrambling before the cornstarch thickens the dressing.

Swap the mustard

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against 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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