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Salad

Salad Dressing

A sweet, thick dressing made from egg yolks, sugar, flour, mustard, salt, vinegar, butter, and sweet cream.

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

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 ↓

Salad Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks, sugar, flour, mustard, and salt until light.

  2. Add the vinegar and butter, then cook over simmering water until smooth and thick.

Serve

  1. When ready to use, thin the dressing with sweet cream to your desired consistency.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

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

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + mustardtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,066 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 yolks
Thicken the dressing and add richness as they cook and set.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the sharpness of the vinegar.
Flour
Stabilizes the dressing and helps it stay thick and smooth.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the dressing its tang.
Butter
Adds fat for smoothness and a rounder mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Cook over simmering water until smooth and thick. Egg yolks thicken and can scramble if they get too hot. Gentle, indirect heat from simmering water lets them set into a smooth custard-like dressing.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Shallotfits about as well
  2. Chivefits about as well
  3. Mustardthe original
  4. Leekfits about as well

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