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Salad

Salad Dressing

A vinaigrette made with hard‑boiled and raw egg yolks, mustard, sugar, olive oil, vinegar, salt, and cayenne pepper.

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

  1. Rub the yolks of 2 hard-boiled eggs until very fine and smooth.

  2. Add the mustard, salt, yolks of 2 raw eggs, and sugar.

  3. Gradually pour in the olive oil while beating until the mixture thickens.

  4. Add vinegar until the dressing reaches your desired consistency.

  5. If the dressing is not spicy enough, add a little cayenne pepper.

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. Mustard + olivetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

  4. Olive + vinegartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,297 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

  5. Olive + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,263 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Raw egg yolks
Emulsify the oil into the dressing, giving it a thick, creamy body.
Olive oil
Provides the fat that, dispersed in the yolks, gives the dressing its richness and body.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Mash into a fine paste that adds smoothness and body to the dressing.
English mustard
Helps hold the oil and egg emulsion together and adds sharp flavour.

The step that matters

Adding the olive oil. Oil must be poured slowly while beating so it disperses into tiny droplets held by the egg yolk emulsifier. Adding it too fast can break the emulsion, leaving the dressing oily and thin.

Swap the mustard

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

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

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