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Salad

Salad Cream Dressing

A creamy dressing made with mustard, sugar, eggs, vinegar, milk, and oil.

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 ↓

Salad Cream Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. In a bowl, mix the dry mustard, salt, and powdered sugar with hot water until smooth.

  2. Slowly pour in the oil while beating continuously until the mixture thickens.

Cook and finish

  1. Add the unbeaten eggs and beat until well combined.

  2. Stir in the vinegar and milk.

  3. Heat the mixture over low heat, stirring constantly until it comes to a boil.

  4. Strain if desired 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. 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. Mustard + sugartop 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

Eggs
Egg proteins thicken the dressing as they heat, giving it a creamy body.
Oil
Oil forms an emulsion with the mustard mixture, adding richness and a thick texture.
Dry mustard
Mustard helps stabilise the emulsion and adds sharp flavour.
Vinegar
Vinegar adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the richness of the oil.
Milk
Milk adds moisture and mellows the dressing's texture and flavour.

The step that matters

Heating the mixture with the eggs. Stir constantly over low heat. Egg proteins set as they warm, so uneven or high heat can scramble the eggs and leave lumps, while gentle constant stirring lets the dressing thicken smoothly.

Swap the mustard

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

  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, vinegar, milk. 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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