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Salad

Cooked Salad Dressing

A salad dressing made by cooking sugar, salt, mustard, eggs, oil, milk, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Cooked Salad Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. In a bowl, mix sugar, salt, dry mustard, and egg yolks.

  2. Add oil, milk, and vinegar to the mixture.

  3. Transfer to a saucepan and heat until thickened.

  4. Remove from heat immediately to prevent curdling.

Finish with egg whites

  1. Beat egg whites until stiff and gently fold into the mixture.

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. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Sugar + mustardtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,424 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 and add richness as they set with gentle heat.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they add lightness and volume to the dressing.
Oil
Adds fat and a smooth, rich mouthfeel to the dressing.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that gives the dressing its tangy flavor.
Milk
Adds moisture and mild richness, softening the sharpness of the vinegar.

The step that matters

Remove from heat immediately to prevent curdling. Egg yolks thicken as their proteins set with heat, but overheating causes them to scramble and curdle. Pulling the pan off the heat once the dressing thickens keeps it smooth.

Swap the mustard

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, milk, 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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