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Salad

Salad Dressing

A creamy dressing made with hard‑boiled eggs, mustard, sugar, vinegar, oil, salt, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Salad Dressing

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 ↓

Salad Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. Crush the yolks of the eggs very fine in a bowl with the mustard and other dry ingredients.

  2. Add the oil gradually until well mixed.

  3. Then add the vinegar and lastly the cream.

Store

  1. Store in a cool place in a well-corked container for up to a week.

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. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + creamtop 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

Hard-boiled eggs
Yolks are crushed into a paste that gives the dressing body and helps bind the oil.
Dry mustard
Contains natural emulsifiers that help hold oil and liquid together, and adds sharp flavour.
Oil
Supplies fat for a smooth, rich texture once emulsified with the yolks.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the richness of the cream and oil.
Brown sugar
Adds a little sweetness that rounds out the sharpness of the mustard and vinegar.
Cream
Adds richness and a softer, creamier body to the finished dressing.

The step that matters

Add the oil gradually. Egg yolk lecithin emulsifies oil into tiny droplets. Adding the oil slowly lets the yolk-mustard paste absorb it, while adding it too fast can break the emulsion so the dressing turns greasy and separates.

Swap the mustard

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

  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 egg, sugar, 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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