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Salad Dressing

A vinaigrette-style dressing made with egg yolks, mustard, sugar, cayenne pepper, cream, vinegar, and optional garlic or onion.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Salad Dressing

Why it works: Pepper and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Salad Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Rub a bowl with a clove of garlic or onion.

Make the dressing

  1. Beat the egg yolks well.

  2. Add the salt, mustard, sugar, and cayenne pepper, and mix thoroughly.

  3. Slowly add the cream or milk, mixing continuously.

  4. Gradually add the vinegar until the dressing thickens.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Mustard + clovetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,829 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Emulsifiers that help bind the oil-free cream and vinegar into a thick, smooth dressing.
Cream or milk
Adds moisture and richness, softening the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that brightens the flavour and helps the dressing thicken.
Mustard
Contributes sharp flavour and further helps stabilise the emulsion.

The step that matters

Adding the vinegar gradually. Egg yolk proteins thicken the mixture as they are dispersed with liquid. Adding vinegar too quickly can overwhelm the yolks and prevent the dressing from thickening smoothly, so it should be added slowly while mixing.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, mustard, sugar, pepper, cream, 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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