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Salad

Cream Salad Dressing

A creamy dressing made with mustard, sugar, salt, egg yolks, butter, vinegar, egg whites, and whipped heavy cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Cream Salad Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. In a bowl, mix mustard, sugar, salt, and egg yolks.

  2. Slowly add melted butter and vinegar, mixing continuously.

  3. Fold in beaten egg whites.

  4. Transfer to a double boiler and cook until thick.

Finish and store

  1. Once cool, gently fold in whipped cream.

  2. Store in a cool place.

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. 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. 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
Emulsify the butter and vinegar and thicken the dressing when gently cooked.
Egg whites
Add lightness and airy body to the dressing when folded in.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that gives the dressing a smooth, creamy mouthfeel.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the dressing its tang and balances the richness.
Heavy cream
Adds softness and a light, creamy texture when whipped and folded in.

The step that matters

Cook in the double boiler until thick. Egg yolks thicken as they heat gently, but too much heat can scramble them. Gentle, indirect heat in a double boiler keeps the dressing smooth while it sets.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Mustardthe original
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Cucumberfits about as well

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