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Salad

Salad Dressing

A custard-style salad dressing made with eggs, mustard, vinegar, cayenne pepper, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Salad Dressing

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 ↓

Salad Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Beat the eggs until light.

  2. Add the mustard, salt, vinegar, and cayenne pepper; mix well.

  3. Place the mixture in a dish filled with boiling water.

  4. Warm the mixture, then add the butter.

  5. Cook until slightly thicker than custard, stirring constantly.

  6. If desired, boil until thicker, then thin with milk or cream.

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

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Thicken as they cook and form the creamy body of the dressing.
Butter
Adds richness and a smoother, silkier mouthfeel to the dressing.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the rich eggs.
Mixed mustard
Adds sharp flavour and helps emulsify the dressing.

The step that matters

Cook until slightly thicker than custard, stirring constantly. Egg proteins set with gentle heat, and if the mixture gets too hot or is not stirred, the eggs can curdle or scramble. Constant stirring over a water bath keeps heat even and the dressing smooth.

Swap the mustard

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

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

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