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Salad

Dressing for Cold Meats or Salads

A custard-like dressing made with eggs, mustard, butter or oil, salt, and vinegar, cooked over low heat.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Dressing for Cold Meats or Salads

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Beat the eggs until well combined.

  2. Add mustard, butter or oil, salt, and vinegar to the eggs.

  3. Cook the mixture over low heat, stirring constantly, until it thickens like custard.

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. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Mustard + buttertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,003 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Butter + vinegartop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,513 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  5. Egg + mustardtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,210 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set and thicken as they cook, giving the dressing its custard-like body.
Mustard
Adds sharp flavour that balances the richness of the eggs and fat.
Butter or oil
Adds fat, which gives the dressing a smoother, richer mouthfeel.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and cuts through rich meat.

The step that matters

Cook the mixture over low heat, stirring constantly. Egg proteins set at moderate temperatures, so high heat or no stirring can scramble the eggs into lumps before the mixture thickens smoothly.

Swap the mustard

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, 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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