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Salad

Salad Dressing

A vinaigrette-style dressing made with egg yolks, mustard, butter, vinegar, and seasonings, served hot over chopped cabbage.

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 dressing

  1. Beat the egg yolks thoroughly in a bowl.

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

  3. Stir in the vinegar.

  4. Place the bowl in a kettle of hot water.

  5. Stir constantly until thickened.

  6. Remove from heat and let cool before use.

Dress and serve

  1. Pour the dressing over finely chopped cabbage while hot, and mix thoroughly.

  2. Form the cabbage into an oval mound on a platter.

  3. Serve cold.

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. Pepper + mustardtop 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 and thicken the dressing as they set over gentle heat.
Butter
Adds richness and smooth body to the dressing.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that gives the dressing its tang.
White sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness.
Prepared mustard
Adds sharp flavour and helps stabilise the emulsion.

The step that matters

Stir constantly until thickened. Egg yolks thicken as their proteins coagulate with heat. If the bowl is left unstirred, or the water is too hot, the yolks can scramble and curdle, leaving a grainy dressing.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardthe original
  3. Cucumberfits about as well
  4. Shallotfits less well

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