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Dessert

Cooked Dressing

A thickened dressing made with salt, egg yolks, mustard, butter or oil, cornstarch, milk, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Cooked Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl.

  2. Add the egg yolks (slightly beaten), melted butter or oil, milk, and vinegar slowly.

Cook and cool

  1. Cook the mixture over hot water until it thickens.

  2. Strain the dressing and let it cool.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Mustard + buttertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,003 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Thicken the dressing and add richness as they set gently with heat.
Cornstarch
Thickens the liquid when heated, giving the dressing body.
Butter or oil
Adds fat for smooth mouthfeel and carries flavour.
Milk
Adds moisture and mildness, loosening the thick custard-like base.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that balances the richness of the eggs and fat.
Mustard
Adds savoury flavour and helps keep the fat blended into the dressing.

The step that matters

Cooking over hot water until it thickens. Egg proteins set at moderate heat, so overheating can scramble the eggs into lumps. Gentle, steady heat lets the starch and eggs thicken the dressing smoothly.

Swap the mustard

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, milk, vinegar. 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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