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Cream Dressing

A butter and vinegar base emulsified with eggs and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Cream Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a bowl, rub together the butter, vinegar, salt, and mustard if using.

  2. Place the bowl in a saucepan of boiling water over low heat.

  3. Stir the mixture carefully until very hot to prevent the butter from separating.

  4. Add the beaten eggs and stir until thick.

  5. Remove from heat and stir in the cream until smooth.

  6. Allow the dressing to cool completely before serving.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Butter + mustardtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,003 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Butter + vinegartop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,513 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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 set gently in the warm mixture, giving it body.
Butter
Adds richness and smoothness, which is why it must not separate during heating.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and balances the richness of the cream.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, mellow texture once stirred in off the heat.

The step that matters

Stir the mixture carefully until very hot. Gentle, steady heat in a water bath lets the egg proteins thicken the dressing without scrambling. Heating too fast or unevenly can curdle the eggs or make the butter separate out of the emulsion.

Swap the mustard

The recipe marks mustard as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, vinegar, egg, cream):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, vinegar, egg, cream. 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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