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Dessert

Boiled Dressing

A sauce made by cooking flour and butter, then adding boiling vinegar, egg, and thinning with cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Boiled Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. Cook the flour in the butter for 2 minutes.

  2. Slowly pour in the boiling vinegar while beating with a wooden spoon until smooth.

  3. Cook for 5 minutes.

Finish and cool

  1. Add the beaten egg and cook for 1 more minute.

  2. Set aside to cool and thin with cream before using.

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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Flour + creamtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

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

Flour
Thickens the dressing as its starch swells in the hot liquid.
Butter
Adds fat and richness and carries the flavour of the dressing.
Vinegar
Provides the sharp acidity that gives the dressing its tang.
Egg
Thickens and enriches the dressing as its proteins set with gentle heat.

The step that matters

Adding the beaten egg. Egg proteins set with heat and can curdle or scramble if the mixture is too hot or cooked too long. Keep the heat moderate and stir during the final minute so the dressing thickens smoothly.

“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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