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Southern Cooked Salad Dressing

A cooked salad dressing made with eggs, oil, milk, vinegar, mustard, sugar, salt, and pepper.

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 ↓

Southern Cooked Salad Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Mix the sugar, coarse sea salt, and mustard together.

  2. Add the salad oil, beaten eggs, milk, and vinegar.

  3. Cook in a double boiler until thick, stirring constantly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Thicken the dressing as they cook and set, giving it body and a creamy texture.
Salad oil
Adds fat for richness and a smooth mouthfeel.
Milk
Adds moisture and mellows the dressing's body.
Vinegar
Provides sharp acidity that balances the sweetness and richness.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the vinegar's sharpness.
Mustard
Adds sharp flavor and helps bind the oil and liquids together.

The step that matters

Cook in a double boiler until thick, stirring constantly. Eggs thicken as their proteins set with gentle heat. If the mixture gets too hot or stops being stirred, the eggs can curdle or scramble, leaving a grainy texture. A double boiler and constant stirring keep the heat even and gentle.

Swap the mustard

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

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

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