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Salad

Salad Dressing

A salad dressing made with eggs, sugar, salt, mustard, cream, vinegar, and olive oil.

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

  1. In a bowl, combine eggs, sugar, coarse sea salt, mustard, cream, and vinegar.

  2. Cook over boiling water until thick, stirring constantly.

  3. Once cooled, gradually add olive oil, one drop at a time.

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Egg yolks thicken and emulsify the dressing as they cook, giving it body.
Olive oil
Fat that, added slowly, forms a stable emulsion and gives the dressing richness.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and balances the richness of the oil.
Mustard
Its natural emulsifiers help hold the oil and egg mixture together.

The step that matters

Cook over boiling water until thick. Heating the egg mixture gently thickens it by setting the egg proteins. Stirring constantly prevents the eggs from scrambling on the bottom of the pan, which would leave lumps and a grainy texture.

Swap the mustard

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

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

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