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Salad

Boiled Dressing

A boiled dressing made with egg yolk, mustard, butter, cayenne pepper, cream, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Boiled Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Mix ingredients in the order given, adding vinegar very slowly.

  2. Cook over boiling water, stirring constantly, until the mixture thickens.

  3. Strain and cool.

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. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Egg + buttertop 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

Egg yolk
Its proteins set as they heat, thickening the dressing into a smooth, spoonable texture.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, softening the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Adds acidity and tang that balances the richness of the yolk, butter and cream.
Mustard
Adds a sharp, savoury flavour that supports the acidity.

The step that matters

Cook over boiling water while stirring constantly. Egg yolk proteins set as they heat. Stirring constantly spreads the heat evenly over the bowl, so the dressing thickens smoothly instead of curdling or scrambling in hot spots.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Potatofits about as well
  3. Mustardthe original
  4. Spinachfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, pepper, cream, 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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