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Dessert

A Good Boiled Dressing

A boiled dressing made with egg yolks, mustard, salt, cayenne pepper, sugar, butter or oil, cream or milk, hot vinegar, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

A Good Boiled Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. Beat the yolks of three eggs in a bowl.

  2. Add mustard, salt, cayenne, sugar, melted butter or oil, cream or milk, and hot vinegar. Mix well.

  3. Cook the mixture in a double boiler until it thickens like soft custard, stirring frequently.

  4. Fold in the beaten egg whites gently.

Store and serve

  1. Store in a cool place for up to two weeks.

  2. Serve with lettuce, string beans, or cauliflower.

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

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

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 as they cook, giving it a custard-like body.
Egg whites
Beaten and folded in to lighten the texture and add airiness.
Cream or milk
Adds richness and moisture, softening the sharpness of the vinegar.
Hot vinegar
Provides acidity that gives the dressing its tang.
Melted butter or oil
Adds fat for smoothness and a rounder mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Cook in a double boiler until it thickens. Egg yolks set gently as they heat. Too much heat scrambles them into lumps, so gentle, frequent stirring over simmering water keeps the custard smooth.

Swap the mustard

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

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

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