Skip to main content
Salad

Cream Dressing III

A thickened dressing made with eggs, mustard, sugar, vinegar, butter, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Cream Dressing III

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. In a bowl, mix the egg yolks (or whole eggs), salt, mustard, sugar, black pepper, and flour until well combined.

  2. Gradually add the vinegar and butter, mixing thoroughly.

  3. Heat the mixture until it comes to a boil.

Finish and serve

  1. Once cooled, thin the dressing with a little cream 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. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Mustard + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,066 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

Flour and butter 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 set with heat and add richness.
Butter
Adds fat for a smooth, rich mouthfeel.
Vinegar
Provides the sharp acidity that defines the dressing.
Flour
Stabilizes the emulsion and helps give the dressing body.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness.

The step that matters

Heating until it boils. Egg proteins thicken the dressing as they heat, but overheating can scramble them into lumps. Stir steadily and remove from heat once it reaches a boil.

Swap the mustard

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

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

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

More cream dressing recipes

Sour 24Sweet 3Whipped 3 See all 48 →

You might also like

Chicken SaladChicken Salad623 recipesSalad DressingSalad Dressing491 recipesTomato SaladTomato Salad179 recipesCold SlawCold Slaw160 recipes