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Salad

Salad Dressing

A creamy dressing made with eggs, butter, vinegar, mustard, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Salad Dressing

Why it works: Mustard and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Salad Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine eggs, corn starch, milk, mustard, coarse sea salt, sugar, celery salt, and paprika or white pepper in a bowl and beat well.

  2. Add melted butter and vinegar and beat again.

  3. Transfer mixture to a double boiler and stir constantly until thick and creamy.

  4. Set double boiler in cold water and continue stirring until cool.

  5. Stir in Worcestershire sauce after removing from heat.

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 + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Corn + celerytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together920 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  4. Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  5. Corn + mustardtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together463 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
Thicken the dressing as they cook and set, giving it a creamy body.
Corn starch
Thickens the liquid when heated, adding body and stability to the dressing.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the emulsified dressing.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the richness.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness, mellowing the dressing's texture.

The step that matters

Stirring the mixture in the double boiler. Eggs can curdle if they get too hot or are left unstirred. Constant stirring over gentle heat lets the starch and egg thicken the custard smoothly.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, corn, milk, mustard, sugar, celery, 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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