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Cream Salad Dressing

A creamy dressing made with vinegar, mustard, eggs, and cream, cooked slowly until custard-like.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Vinegar and mustard 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

  1. Scald the vinegar and mustard in a saucepan and let it cool slightly.

  2. Beat the eggs until very light and add them to the cooled mixture.

  3. Stir in the cream.

  4. Cook in a double boiler until it reaches the consistency of boiled custard.

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. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Vinegar + creamtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,064 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Mustard + creamtop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,935 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  5. Mustard + eggtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,210 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

Egg and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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, giving it a custard-like body.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, fat-based mouthfeel to the dressing.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that gives the dressing its sharp, tangy flavour.
Mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavour that balances the richness of the cream and eggs.

The step that matters

Cook in a double boiler until it reaches the consistency of boiled custard. Egg proteins set gently as they heat. Direct heat can curdle the eggs, so gentle indirect heat in a double boiler and constant stirring keep the dressing smooth.

Swap the mustard

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, egg, 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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