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Salad

An Elegant Salad Dressing

A vinaigrette-style dressing made with flour, butter, sugar, mustard, and egg yolks, thickened and finished with cream and olive oil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

An Elegant Salad Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. In a bowl, combine flour, butter, sugar, salt, mustard, and red pepper, then rub the mixture together.

  2. Add cold water and egg yolks.

  3. Stir in vinegar and boil, stirring constantly until thick and smooth.

  4. Set aside to cool.

Finish the dressing

  1. Whip the cream until solid.

  2. Fold the whipped cream into the cooled mixture.

  3. Add olive oil and mix well.

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. 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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken the dressing and add richness as they set during cooking.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the dressing its sharp, tangy flavour.
Flour
Thickens the base so it becomes smooth and holds together when cooked.
Whipped cream
Lightens the cooled dressing and adds a creamy, airy texture.
Olive oil
Adds fat and a smooth mouthfeel to the finished dressing.

The step that matters

Boil the vinegar mixture until thick and smooth. Egg yolks and flour thicken as they heat, but overheating can scramble the yolks. Stirring constantly spreads heat evenly and prevents lumps and curdling.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Mustardthe original
  3. Shallotfits about as well
  4. Chivefits about as well

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