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Salad Dressing

A butter and flour base dressing thickened with eggs, milk, vinegar, mustard, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Salad Dressing

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

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter until hot.

  2. Add flour and stir until smooth, being careful not to brown.

  3. Pour in the milk and bring to a boil.

Finish and store

  1. In a bowl, beat the eggs, salt, pepper, sugar, and mustard together.

  2. Stir in the vinegar and cook until thick like soft custard.

  3. Keep the dressing in a cool place 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. 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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + mustardtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,066 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Eggs
Thicken the dressing as they cook, giving it a custard-like body.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk base so the dressing holds together.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the base.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that balances the sweetness and richness.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the flour thickens.

The step that matters

Stir in the vinegar and cook until thick like soft custard. Egg proteins set as they heat, so cooking gently while stirring keeps the dressing smooth. Overheating can curdle the eggs and make the dressing grainy.

Swap the mustard

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

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

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