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Dessert

Cooked Salad Dressing

A thickened salad dressing made with mustard, salt, sugar, cornstarch, cayenne, oil, eggs, vinegar, and milk or cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Cooked Salad Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. Mix the dry mustard, salt, sugar, cornstarch, and cayenne together.

  2. Slowly add the oil while stirring.

  3. Incorporate the beaten eggs, vinegar, and milk or cream.

  4. Cook in a double boiler, stirring constantly until thickened like custard.

Store

  1. Cool and store in a jar.

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

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

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

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

  5. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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, setting it into a custard-like texture.
Cornstarch
Thickens the mixture with heat and helps keep the dressing smooth.
Oil
Adds richness and body, giving the dressing a creamy mouthfeel.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the dressing its tangy flavor.
Milk or cream
Adds richness and softness, mellowing the sharpness of the vinegar.

The step that matters

Cook in a double boiler, stirring constantly. Eggs set into custard at moderate heat but can curdle or scramble if overheated or left unstirred. Gentle, constant stirring over indirect heat keeps the dressing smooth and evenly thickened.

Swap the mustard

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

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

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