Skip to main content
Drink

Chicken Salad Dressing

A creamy dressing made with egg yolks, sugar, mustard, cayenne pepper, cream, vinegar, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Chicken Salad Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a saucepan, combine the egg yolks and sugar, and mix well.

  2. Add the salt, mustard, cayenne pepper, cream, and vinegar to the mixture.

  3. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture thickens to the consistency of custard.

  4. Remove from heat and stir in the butter until fully melted and combined.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken the dressing as they set during gentle cooking, giving it a custard-like body.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy mouthfeel as it emulsifies into the warm custard.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that balances the richness of the yolks and butter.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar and mustard.
Cream
Adds moisture and softness, making the dressing smoother and milder.

The step that matters

Cook over low heat while stirring constantly. Egg yolks thicken through gentle heat, but too much heat or too little stirring can scramble them. Constant stirring keeps the heat even so the mixture thickens smoothly into a custard.

Swap the mustard

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

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

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

You might also like

Raspberry VinegarRaspberry Vinegar214 recipesSugar VinegarSugar Vinegar20 recipesVegetable SoupVegetable Soup350 recipesBrown Coffee with EggBrown Coffee with Egg175 recipes