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Salad

Salad Dressing

A creamy dressing made with hard‑boiled egg yolks, mustard, sugar, cayenne, cream or milk, vinegar, and salt.

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

  1. Beat the hard boiled egg yolks in a bowl.

  2. Mix in the table salt, raw mustard, soft sugar, and cayenne pepper until well combined.

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

  4. Gradually add the vinegar until the dressing thickens.

  5. Optionally, rub the bowl with garlic or onion for added flavor.

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

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

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

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

  4. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Hard boiled egg yolks
Emulsify with the liquids and give the dressing a thick, creamy body.
Cream or milk
Adds moisture and richness, loosening the yolks into a smooth dressing.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens flavor and helps the dressing thicken as it is added.
Raw mustard
Its natural emulsifiers help hold the oil-free dressing together and add sharp flavor.

The step that matters

Add the cream or milk slowly while mixing. Adding liquid too fast can cause the yolk mixture to separate instead of forming a smooth, cohesive emulsion. Steady, continuous mixing keeps the fat and water evenly dispersed.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Mustardthe original
  3. Horseradishfits about as well
  4. Spinachfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, 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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