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Cooked Salad Dressing

A salad dressing made by cooking eggs, sugar, oil, mustard, salt, milk or cream, and vinegar.

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

Cooked Salad Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. In a double boiler, stir together the eggs, sugar, sweet oil, mustard, coarse sea salt, milk, and vinegar.

  2. Stir constantly until the mixture thickens.

  3. Remove from heat and strain into a cold dish.

Store and serve

  1. Store in a Mason jar in a cool place for several days.

  2. Use for salads, cold meats, fish, and coleslaw.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

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

  4. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + mustardtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,424 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Eggs
Thicken the dressing as they cook and set, giving it body.
Vinegar
Adds the sharp acidity that balances the sweetness and richness.
Milk or cream
Adds richness and moisture, softening the dressing's texture.
Sweet oil
Contributes fat, giving a smooth mouthfeel and rounder flavour.

The step that matters

Stir constantly until the mixture thickens. Egg proteins set gently with heat, but if the mixture gets too hot or is left unstirred, the eggs can scramble into lumps. Constant stirring over the gentle heat of a double boiler keeps the dressing smooth.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardthe original
  3. Cucumberfits about as well
  4. Sweet potatofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, 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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