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Salad

Salad Dressing

A creamy dressing made with eggs, butter, flour, milk, vinegar, mustard, salt, sugar, cayenne pepper, and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Salad Dressing

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Salad Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a double boiler, heat the milk.

  2. Once hot, blend the butter and flour together, then add to the milk.

  3. Beat in the eggs, mustard, sugar, and salt.

  4. Cook until the mixture thickens like cream.

  5. Let it cool, then fold in the whipped cream.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + mustardtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,066 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Eggs
Thicken the custard base as they cook and set, giving body to the dressing.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the dressing.
Flour
Thickens the milk mixture so the dressing becomes creamy rather than thin.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the thickeners set into a creamy dressing.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the richness.
Whipped cream
Lightens the thickened base and adds softness and body when folded in.

The step that matters

Cook until the mixture thickens like cream. Egg proteins set around 160°F and can scramble if overheated, so cook gently in the double boiler, stirring, and stop once the mixture coats a spoon.

Swap the mustard

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

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

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