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Salad

Salad Dressing

A vinaigrette-style dressing made with vinegar, butter, eggs, mustard, sugar, cornstarch, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Salad Dressing

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

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Heat the vinegar, salt, pepper, and butter in a saucepan until boiling.

  2. In a bowl, mix the sugar, cornstarch, mustard, and yolks of the hard-boiled eggs.

  3. Add the raw eggs and beat the mixture.

  4. Slowly pour the hot vinegar mixture into the egg mixture while stirring continuously.

  5. Cook until thick, then remove from heat and stir in the cream.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Walnut + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together849 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Raw eggs
Their proteins set when cooked, thickening the dressing into a creamy body.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Add rich, smooth body and emulsify into the dressing for a silky texture.
Cornstarch
Thickens the liquid as it heats, giving the dressing body without extra eggs.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, softening the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that gives the dressing its tangy flavor.

The step that matters

Pour the hot vinegar mixture slowly while stirring. Adding hot liquid to egg too quickly can scramble the eggs into lumps. Pouring slowly while stirring gradually warms the eggs so they blend smoothly before thickening.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Almondfits about as well
  2. Chestnutfits about as well
  3. Sesamefits about as well
  4. Walnutthe original

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