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Salad

Salad Dressing Made of Butter

A creamy salad dressing made with eggs, mustard, sugar, butter, vinegar, salt, and sweet cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 Made of Butter

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Beat the eggs in a bowl.

  2. Gradually add mustard, sugar, salt, and vinegar or water.

  3. Melt the butter slightly and add it to the mixture.

  4. Place the bowl on the stove and stir until it thickens.

  5. Remove from heat and stir in the sweet cream.

  6. Let cool 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. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  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

Eggs
Thicken the dressing as they cook and set, giving it a creamy body.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the dressing.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor and balances the sugar and richness.
Sweet cream
Adds richness and softness, mellowing the tang of the vinegar.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.

The step that matters

Stir until it thickens. Egg proteins set with gentle heat and thicken the mixture. If the heat is too high or stirring stops, the eggs can scramble, leaving lumps instead of a smooth dressing.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Mustardthe original
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Cucumberfits about as well

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