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Salad

Cooked Cream Salad Dressing

A cooked dressing made with egg yolks, cream, butter, lemon juice, celery salt, pepper, mustard, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Cooked Cream Salad Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. Lightly beat the egg yolks in a bowl.

  2. Add the cream, melted butter, and lemon juice, stirring continuously.

  3. Incorporate the celery salt, pepper, mustard, and sugar, beating well after each addition.

  4. Place the bowl in a saucepan of hot water and stir rapidly until the dressing thickens.

Cool and serve

  1. Remove from heat and cool thoroughly in the refrigerator before using.

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. Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Lemon + celerytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  5. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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 as they set gently with heat, giving it body and richness.
Butter
Adds fat that makes the dressing smooth and rich-tasting.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the richness.
Thick sweet cream
Adds moisture and fat that give the dressing a smooth, creamy texture.

The step that matters

Stir rapidly over hot water until the dressing thickens. Egg yolks thicken when gently heated, but too much heat scrambles them into lumps. Constant stirring over hot water spreads the heat evenly and keeps the dressing smooth.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Leekfits about as well
  2. Spinachfits about as well
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, cream, butter, lemon, celery, pepper, sugar. 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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