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Salad Dressing

A creamy salad dressing made with egg yolks, sugar, mustard, vinegar, butter, and cornstarch.

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 custard

  1. Beat the yolks of the eggs in a bowl.

  2. Add sugar, mustard, salt, cayenne pepper, and cornstarch to the yolks. Mix well.

  3. In a saucepan, heat vinegar and butter until boiling.

  4. Pour the hot vinegar and butter mixture over the egg mixture.

  5. Transfer everything to a double boiler.

  6. Cook until thickened.

  7. If the vinegar is too strong, dilute it with water.

Serve

  1. Once cooled, serve equal portions of whipped cream and dressing on salad.

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

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

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

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

  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

Egg yolks
Thicken the dressing and emulsify it into a smooth, creamy texture as they cook.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the dressing a smooth, mellow body.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that gives the dressing its sharp, tangy flavour.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness.
Cornstarch
Helps thicken the dressing as it cooks, stabilising the mixture.

The step that matters

Cooking the egg yolk mixture in the double boiler. Egg yolks thicken gently at moderate heat but can scramble if overheated. Cooking slowly over simmering water, while stirring, keeps the mixture smooth and thickened.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardthe original
  3. Cucumberfits about as well
  4. Shallotfits less well

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