Skip to main content
Salad

Salad Dressing Boiled

A boiled salad dressing made with vinegar, butter, sugar, mustard, sour cream, eggs, and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Salad Dressing Boiled

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing base

  1. In a pot, combine vinegar and salt, then bring to a boil.

  2. If the vinegar is too strong, dilute it with water.

  3. In a bowl, mix butter, sugar, mustard, and sour cream until smooth.

  4. Gradually add the beaten eggs to the mixture.

  5. Slowly pour in the boiling vinegar while stirring.

Cook and finish

  1. Return the mixture to the heat and cook until it thickens to a custard-like consistency.

  2. Strain the mixture and fold in the whipped cream.

  3. Store in a jar with a glass cover.

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

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

  4. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

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

  5. Butter + eggtop 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

Eggs
Thicken the dressing as they cook into a custard-like texture.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy mouthfeel to the dressing.
Vinegar
Provides the sharp acidity that defines the dressing's flavor.
Sour cream
Adds tang and body, softening the sharpness of the vinegar.
Whipped cream
Lightens the cooked dressing and adds a soft, airy richness.
Sugar
Balances the acidity of the vinegar with sweetness.

The step that matters

Return the mixture to the heat and cook until it thickens. Egg proteins set as they heat, thickening the dressing into a custard. Heating too fast or too long can scramble the eggs, so cook gently while stirring and stop once it coats a spoon.

Swap the mustard

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

  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 vinegar, butter, sugar, 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.

You might also like

Chicken SaladChicken Salad623 recipesSalad DressingSalad Dressing491 recipesTomato SaladTomato Salad179 recipesCold SlawCold Slaw160 recipes