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Mustard Dressing

A creamy mustard dressing made with butter, French mustard, lemon juice, cream, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Mustard Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Melt the butter in a double boiler.

  2. Add the mustard, lemon juice, salt, pepper, cream, and egg yolks.

  3. Beat until smooth and heat until thick.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  4. Mustard + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,816 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken the dressing as they cook, creating a smooth, emulsified sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and silky body, helping the sauce feel smooth on the palate.
French mustard
Contributes sharp flavor and helps stabilize the emulsion.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the richness of the butter and yolks.
Cream
Adds moisture and softness, mellowing the sauce's texture.

The step that matters

Heat until thick. Egg yolks thicken through gentle heat. Too much heat scrambles them into lumps, so keep the double boiler at a gentle simmer and stir constantly.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, lemon, pepper, cream, egg. 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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