Skip to main content
Salad

Boiled Salad Dressing

A boiled dressing made with flour, sugar, salt, egg yolks, milk, vinegar, and cayenne pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Boiled Salad Dressing

Why it works: Celery and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Boiled Salad Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a bowl, mix the flour, sugar, and salt.

  2. Add the egg yolks and milk, and stir until smooth.

  3. Cook the mixture over medium heat, stirring constantly, until it thickens.

  4. Remove from heat and stir in the vinegar.

  5. Let cool before using. This dressing will keep well.

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

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

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

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

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Celery + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,905 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Flour
Thickens the mixture as it cooks into a smooth, spoonable dressing.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help set the dressing as it cooks and thickens.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the flour and egg yolks thicken.
Vinegar
Adds the sharp, acidic tang that defines the dressing's flavour.
Sugar
Balances the acidity of the vinegar with gentle sweetness.

The step that matters

Cook while stirring constantly. Flour and egg yolks thicken as they heat, but they can scorch or form lumps if left unstirred over medium heat. Constant stirring keeps the heat even so the dressing thickens smoothly.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, pepper, vinegar, flour, egg, 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.

You might also like

Chicken SaladChicken Salad623 recipesSalad DressingSalad Dressing491 recipesTomato SaladTomato Salad179 recipesCold SlawCold Slaw160 recipes