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Dessert

Boiled Dressing III

A boiled dressing made with mustard, sugar, butter, flour, egg yolks, vinegar, and optional cayenne pepper and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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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 ↓

Boiled Dressing III

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. In a bowl, mix the dry mustard with boiling water.

  2. Add sugar, melted butter, salt, flour, and beaten egg yolks; mix thoroughly.

  3. Heat the vinegar and add it to the mixture.

  4. Cook everything together in a double boiler until thick.

Finish and serve

  1. Stir in whipped cream to taste before serving.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 and add richness.
Flour
Helps thicken the dressing so it holds body.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the dressing its tangy flavour.
Butter
Adds fat for a smoother, richer mouthfeel.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness.

The step that matters

Cook in a double boiler until thick. Egg yolks set gently over indirect heat. Too much heat can scramble them into lumps, so cooking slowly over simmering water keeps the dressing smooth while it thickens.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Mustardthe original
  3. Shallotfits about as well
  4. Chivefits about as well

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