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Dessert

Cooked Dressing

A vinaigrette made by cooking egg yolks, vinegar, mustard, salt, sugar, butter, and olive oil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Cooked Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a saucepan, combine egg yolks, vinegar, mustard, salt, sugar, and butter.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil, then strain it.

  3. Once cooled, stir in the olive oil.

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. Mustard + olivetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Vinegar + olivetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,297 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

  4. Butter + olivetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,887 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Vinegar + sugartop 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the dressing as they set, giving it a creamy, emulsified body.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and balances the richness of the yolks and oil.
Butter
Adds fat that softens the texture and rounds out the flavour of the cooked base.
Olive oil
Adds fat and body, giving the finished dressing smoothness and a richer mouthfeel.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.

The step that matters

Bring the mixture to a boil, then strain it. Egg yolks thicken as they heat, but overheating can curdle them into lumps. Straining removes any bits that set, leaving a smooth dressing.

Swap the mustard

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

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

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