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Salad

A New Salad Dressing

A salad dressing made with vinegar, butter, mustard, pepper, salt, sour cream, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

A New Salad Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. In a saucepan, heat the vinegar, butter, salt, mustard, and pepper together.

  2. In a bowl, beat the eggs until light, then mix in the sour cream.

  3. Slowly pour the egg and cream mixture into the hot vinegar mixture.

  4. Cook in a double boiler, stirring until it thickens.

Store

  1. Store covered; it will keep for a long time.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  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 set when gently heated, giving it body.
Sour cream
Adds richness and a creamy texture to the dressing.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that gives the dressing its sharp, tangy flavor.
Butter
Adds fat for smoothness and a rounder mouthfeel.
Mixed mustard
Adds sharp flavor and helps emulsify the dressing.

The step that matters

Slowly pour the egg and cream mixture into the hot vinegar mixture.. Pouring too fast can scramble the eggs, because they cook quickly when they meet hot liquid. Adding the mixture slowly and stirring keeps the dressing smooth and lets it thicken evenly.

Swap the mustard

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

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

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