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Salad

Salad Dressing

A thickened dressing made with eggs, milk, vinegar, mustard, butter, cream, salt, and pepper.

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

Why it works: Milk and butter 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 dressing

  1. Combine beaten eggs, sweet milk, vinegar, mixed mustard, melted butter, salt, and pepper in a bowl. Mix thoroughly.

  2. Place the mixture in a kettle of boiling water and stir until it thickens, about 4 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. When ready to use, add the cream.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

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

  5. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

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 and set, giving it body.
Sweet milk
Adds liquid and richness, softening the dressing's tang.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that gives the dressing its sharp, tangy flavour.
Butter
Adds fat for smoothness and a rounder mouthfeel.
Cream
Added at the end to enrich the dressing and loosen its texture.

The step that matters

Stirring over boiling water until it thickens. Egg proteins set with gentle heat, and if the mixture gets too hot or is left unstirred, the eggs can curdle and turn grainy. Stirring keeps the heat even so the dressing thickens smoothly.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Mustardthe original

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