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Salad

Boiled Salad Dressing

A boiled dressing made with eggs, mustard, salt, sugar, vinegar, butter, and onion.

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

Why it works: Mustard and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,259 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Boiled Salad Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Beat the egg whites and yolks separately.

Make the dressing

  1. Combine mustard, salt, sugar, and vinegar in a saucepan.

  2. Boil the mixture until thick.

  3. Stir in butter and chopped onion.

Serve

  1. Serve over salad.

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 + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Vinegar + oniontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Egg proteins set as they heat, thickening the dressing into a creamy body.
Vinegar
Provides the sharp acidity that defines the dressing's tang.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the sharpness of the vinegar and mustard.
Butter
Adds fat, richness, and a smoother mouthfeel to the cooked dressing.
Mustard
Contributes sharp, pungent flavor that complements the vinegar.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture until thick. Egg proteins thicken as they heat, but if the mixture gets too hot or boils too hard, the eggs can curdle or scramble. Stir steadily and watch the texture closely as it thickens.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, mustard, sugar, 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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