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Salad

Salad Dressing

A vinaigrette-style salad dressing made with egg yolks, sugar, pepper, mustard, milk or cream, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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

Make the dressing base

  1. Beat the yolks of the eggs in a bowl.

  2. Add sugar, pepper, ground mustard, and salt; mix well.

  3. Stir in the milk or cream.

Cook the dressing

  1. Scald the vinegar in a saucepan.

  2. Pour the hot vinegar over the egg mixture and stir until smooth.

  3. Return the mixture to the stove and cook for 5 minutes, 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. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Egg yolks thicken the dressing as they cook and give it a rich, creamy body.
Milk or cream
Adds moisture and richness, softening the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that gives the dressing its tangy flavor.
Sugar
Balances the acidity of the vinegar with a touch of sweetness.

The step that matters

Cooking the mixture after adding the hot vinegar. Egg yolks thicken when heated, but if the mixture gets too hot or is left unstirred, the eggs can scramble and curdle. Constant stirring over gentle heat keeps the dressing smooth and evenly thickened.

Swap the mustard

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

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

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