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Salad

Salad Dressing

A sweet and tangy dressing made with sugar, flour, milk, egg yolks, butter, vinegar, and water.

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

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Salad Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Mix the base

  1. In a bowl, combine sugar, flour, pepper, and salt.

  2. Add milk and stir until well mixed.

Finish the dressing

  1. In a separate bowl, whisk the egg yolks.

  2. Stir the egg yolks into the milk mixture.

  3. Melt the butter and add it to the mixture.

  4. Add vinegar and water, stirring continuously until thickened.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
Their proteins set as they heat, thickening the dressing and adding richness.
Flour
Its starch swells as it heats, thickening the liquid and giving the dressing body.
Sugar
Sweetens the dressing and softens the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the dressing its tangy flavor.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the other ingredients are combined into.
Butter
Adds fat for a richer flavor and smoother mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Stir continuously until thickened. Egg yolk proteins can curdle or clump in hot spots if the mixture is not kept moving as it thickens. Constant stirring spreads the heat evenly and keeps the flour starch from forming lumps.

“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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