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Salad

Cooked Salad Dressing III

A thickened salad dressing made with flour, cayenne pepper, sugar, eggs, vinegar, mustard, water, and olive oil or butter.

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

Cooked Salad Dressing III

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Mix the flour, cayenne pepper, sugar, and salt in a bowl.

  2. Add the beaten eggs, vinegar, and water to the dry ingredients.

  3. Cook the mixture over hot water until thick.

  4. If using butter, add it now.

  5. If using olive oil, add it very slowly when the mixture cools.

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. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Mustard + olivetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

  4. Vinegar + olivetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,297 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

  5. Pepper + olivetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,263 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Thickens the mixture as it cooks, giving the dressing body.
Eggs
Set when heated, thickening the dressing and binding it into a creamy texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the dressing its tangy flavor.
Olive oil or butter
Adds fat, enriching the dressing and softening its flavor.

The step that matters

Cook the mixture over hot water until thick. Egg proteins set gently with heat, and flour thickens as it heats. Cooking too fast or too hot can scramble the eggs and leave lumps, so gentle indirect heat over hot water keeps the dressing smooth.

Swap the mustard

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

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

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