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Salad

Boiled Dressing I

A thickened mustard-based dressing made with sweet milk, vinegar, sugar, butter, eggs, and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Boiled Dressing I

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine mustard, sweet milk, salt, vinegar, sugar, and butter in a double boiler.

  2. Cook until thickened, then let cool.

  3. Fold in the whipped cream.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

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

  5. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken the cooked dressing as their proteins set with gentle heat.
Whipped cream
Adds lightness and a smooth, rich texture when folded in.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother mouthfeel.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor and balances the sugar.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that offsets the acidity of the vinegar.
Mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavor to the dressing.

The step that matters

Cooking until thickened. The egg yolks thicken the mixture as their proteins set with heat. Too much heat or too long over the flame can curdle or scramble them, leaving a grainy dressing. Cook gently and stir constantly, stopping once it coats a spoon.

Swap the mustard

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

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

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