Skip to main content
Salad

Slaw Dressing

A creamy dressing made with butter, flour, mustard, cayenne pepper, egg yolk, vinegar, sugar, and salt.

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

Why it works: Mustard and vinegar 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 ↓

Slaw Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Cream the butter with the flour, salt, mustard, and cayenne pepper.

  2. Add the egg yolk and mix well.

  3. Gradually beat in the vinegar.

  4. Cook in a double boiler until thick.

  5. Once cool, stir in the sugar.

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. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

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

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

Egg yolk
Thickens as it cooks and adds richness and body to the dressing.
Flour
Helps stabilise the mixture and adds body as it thickens.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the creamed base a smooth texture.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that balances the richness of the egg and butter.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the sharpness of the vinegar.

The step that matters

Cook in a double boiler until thick. Egg yolk proteins thicken when heated, so gentle, indirect heat sets the dressing smoothly. Too much heat can scramble the yolk, leaving lumps and a grainy texture.

Swap the mustard

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

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

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

More slaw dressing recipes

Cold 49Hot 3 See all 28 →

You might also like

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