Skip to main content
Salad

Salad Dressing for Salmon

A mustard-based dressing thickened with butter, eggs, and milk, seasoned with sugar, salt, pepper, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Salad Dressing for Salmon

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing base

  1. In a bowl, combine mustard, sugar, salt, and pepper.

  2. Moisten the dry ingredients with hot water.

  3. Add melted butter, beaten eggs, and milk to the mixture.

  4. Finally, stir in the vinegar.

Cook the dressing

  1. Place the bowl in a pan of boiling water and cook until thick as custard, stirring constantly.

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

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

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

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

  5. Sugar + vinegartop 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

Eggs
Thicken the dressing as they cook, setting it into a custard-like texture.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the dressing.
Milk or cream
Adds moisture and richness, helping the dressing become smooth and creamy.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the dressing its tangy flavour.

The step that matters

Cook the dressing over boiling water until thick as custard. Eggs thicken when heated gently. Stirring constantly over a steady water bath keeps the heat even, so the eggs set smoothly instead of scrambling or curdling.

Swap the mustard

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

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

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

You might also like

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