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Salad

Salad Dressing

A vinaigrette made from egg yolks, sugar, mustard, vinegar, butter, salt, and pepper.

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

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

  2. Add sugar, mustard, salt, and pepper; mix well.

Make the dressing

  1. Boil the vinegar in a saucepan.

  2. Add butter to the boiling vinegar and stir until melted.

  3. Pour the hot vinegar mixture over the egg mixture and mix thoroughly.

  4. Bottle the dressing and store it in a cool place until needed.

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
Emulsify the butter and vinegar and thicken the dressing as it is heated.
Butter
Adds richness and body, giving the dressing a smooth, creamy texture.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that balances the richness and sweetness of the dressing.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that offsets the sharpness of the vinegar.
Mustard
Adds sharp flavour and helps stabilise the emulsion.

The step that matters

Pour the hot vinegar mixture over the egg mixture and mix thoroughly. Egg yolks thicken when heated, but pouring hot liquid too quickly can scramble them. Pour slowly while whisking so the yolks warm gradually and the dressing stays smooth.

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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