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Salad

Cream Salad Dressing

A creamy dressing made with egg yolks, vinegar, mustard, and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Vinegar and mustard 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 Salad Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. In a bowl, mix the egg yolks, pepper, salt, vinegar, butter, mustard, and sugar.

  2. Set the bowl in a pan of boiling water and stir until thickened.

  3. Remove from heat and beat well.

Finish and serve

  1. Just before serving, stir 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. Vinegar + mustardtop 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. Pepper + mustardtop 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. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

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 over heat, giving it a smooth, creamy body.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the cooked dressing.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and balances the richness.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that rounds out the sharp vinegar and mustard.
Whipped cream
Lightens the thickened dressing and adds a soft, airy texture.

The step that matters

Stirring over boiling water until thickened. Egg yolks thicken as they heat, but if they get too hot they can scramble into lumps. Stir gently and keep the bowl over simmering rather than furiously boiling water, so the dressing becomes smooth.

Swap the mustard

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

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

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