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Cream Salad Dressing

A dressing made from hard‑boiled egg yolks, raw yolk, butter, cream, vinegar, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cream Salad Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Mash the hard-boiled yolks until fine.

  2. Gradually work in the raw yolk until smooth.

  3. Add the salt, pepper, and melted butter, blending well.

  4. Slowly add the cream while stirring continuously.

  5. Gradually mix in the vinegar, then refrigerate.

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

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

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

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

  3. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Cream + peppertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together21,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Cream and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 21,449 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

Hard-boiled egg yolks
Form a smooth, thick base that gives the dressing body.
Raw egg yolk
Emulsifies the fats so the dressing stays smooth and creamy.
Melted butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavor and smooths the texture.
Cream
Adds moisture and silkiness, loosening the dressing to a pourable consistency.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and balances the richness.

The step that matters

Gradually work in the raw yolk until smooth. Adding the raw yolk slowly lets it bind with the mashed yolks and melted fat into a stable emulsion. Adding it all at once can leave the dressing grainy or separated.

“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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