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Mustard Dressing

A creamy dressing made with egg yolk, mustard, oil, vinegar, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Mustard Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. In a bowl, combine the mustard and boiling water with salt and pepper.

  2. Slowly stir this mixture into the egg yolk.

  3. Gradually add the oil drop by drop while stirring steadily in one direction.

  4. Add vinegar to taste, ensuring the mixture does not crack or curdle.

Store and rescue

  1. Store in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks.

  2. If the oil separates, mix in a few drops of vinegar to smooth it out.

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. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  3. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  4. Egg + mustardtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,210 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Egg + vinegartop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,922 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and vinegar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,922 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 yolk
Emulsifies the oil with the mustard, holding the oil and water-based liquid together as a smooth dressing.
Mustard
Helps stabilise the emulsion and adds sharp, pungent flavour.
Oil
Forms the body of the dressing, giving richness and a smooth texture once emulsified.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the richness of the oil.

The step that matters

Adding the oil. Oil must be added slowly, drop by drop, while stirring steadily in one direction. Adding it too fast overwhelms the egg yolk, so the emulsion breaks and the dressing separates or curdles.

Swap the mustard

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, vinegar, pepper. 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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