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Salad

Salad Dressing

A vinaigrette made with egg yolks, olive oil, butter, vinegar, lemon, mustard, spices, and powdered sugar, thinned with whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Salad Dressing

Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Salad Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. Beat the yolks of 8 eggs until thick and lemon colored.

  2. Slowly add 3 tablespoons of olive oil while beating continually.

  3. Gradually mix in ½ cup melted butter, ⅓ cup vinegar, and the juice of 1 lemon.

  4. Cook in a double boiler until it coats the back of a spoon.

  5. Remove from heat and sift in 4 teaspoons salt, 1½ tablespoons mustard, ½ teaspoon white pepper, ⅛ teaspoon red pepper, and 3 tablespoons powdered sugar.

Finish and serve

  1. Thin the dressing with whipped 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.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Olive + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,922 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Olive + mustardtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Emulsify the oil and butter and thicken the dressing as it cooks.
Olive oil
Adds fat and richness, held in suspension by the egg yolks.
Melted butter
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy mouthfeel to the dressing.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that balances the richness of the yolks and fats.
Mustard
Helps stabilise the emulsion and adds sharp flavour.
Whipped cream
Lightens the thick dressing and adds softness to its texture.

The step that matters

Cook in a double boiler until it coats the back of a spoon. Egg yolks thicken with gentle heat, but overheating scrambles them into lumps. A double boiler keeps the heat low and even, so the dressing thickens smoothly.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, olive, butter, vinegar, lemon, mustard, pepper. 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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