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Mustard Dressing

A creamy dressing made with sour cream, eggs, sugar, vinegar, mustard, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Mustard Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine sour cream, eggs, sugar, vinegar, mustard, and salt in a saucepan.

  2. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture thickens.

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. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Sugar + mustardtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,424 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 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

Sour cream
Adds richness and body, with a mild tang that softens the dressing.
Eggs
Their proteins set as they heat, thickening the dressing into a creamy texture.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar and mustard for a rounded sweetness.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that brightens the flavor and cuts the richness of the cream.
Mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavor that gives the dressing its characteristic bite.

The step that matters

Stirring constantly while the mixture cooks. Egg proteins set as they heat. Constant stirring spreads the heat evenly, so the eggs thicken the dressing smoothly instead of scrambling into lumps on the bottom of the pan.

Swap the mustard

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

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

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