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Salad

Salad Cream

A creamy dressing made with mustard, salt, sugar, egg, cream, vinegar, and butter.

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

Salad Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. Mix mustard, salt, sugar, and beaten egg in a bowl.

  2. Pour in cream and scalded vinegar, then add melted butter.

Cook and thicken

  1. Cook in a double boiler until slightly thickened.

  2. Strain the mixture.

  3. Let it cool.

Serve

  1. Serve over cold slaw.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Egg
Its proteins set when heated, thickening the dressing and giving it body.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that balances the richness of the cream and butter.
Butter
Adds fat for a smooth, rich mouthfeel and a silky texture.
Cream
Adds richness and softness, mellowing the sharpness of the vinegar.
Mustard
Adds pungent flavor and helps hold the egg and fat together as an emulsion.
Sugar
Adds gentle sweetness that rounds out the sharpness of the vinegar and mustard.

The step that matters

Cook in a double boiler until slightly thickened. Egg proteins thicken the dressing but curdle if overheated. Gentle, indirect heat from the double boiler, with steady stirring, lets the mixture thicken smoothly without scrambling.

Swap the mustard

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

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

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