Skip to main content
Sauce

Boiled Dressing

A custard-like sauce made with eggs, mustard, vinegar, salt, cayenne pepper, sugar, cream, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Vinegar and mustard 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 ↓

Boiled Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Beat the eggs with the mustard in a bowl.

  2. In a double boiler, combine the eggs, mustard, vinegar, salt, cayenne, sugar, and cream.

  3. Heat the vinegar to boiling point in a separate pan and add the butter to melt.

  4. Pour the melted butter and vinegar into the double boiler mixture.

  5. Cook while stirring constantly until the mixture reaches the consistency of 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.

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. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Coagulate when gently heated, thickening the dressing into a custard-like texture.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture, softening the sharpness of the vinegar.
Butter
Adds fat for a smooth, rounded mouthfeel in the finished dressing.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that gives the dressing its tangy flavour.
Mustard
Adds sharp flavour and helps emulsify the eggs and fat.

The step that matters

Cook while stirring constantly. Egg proteins set gently with heat, so the mixture can curdle if it overheats or stops being stirred. Slow, constant stirring over a double boiler keeps it smooth and thickens it evenly into soft custard.

Swap the mustard

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

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

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

You might also like

Mixed MustardMixed Mustard9 recipesWine Sauce (for stewed fruit)Wine Sauce (for stewed fruit)186 recipesCaper SauceCaper Sauce180 recipesBrown SauceBrown Sauce141 recipes