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Salad

Salad Dressing

A creamy dressing made with butter, milk, eggs, mustard, sugar, vinegar or lemon, celery salt, and cayenne pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Salad Dressing

Why it works: Celery and mustard 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. Melt the butter in a saucepan until smooth, being careful not to brown it.

  2. Add the milk and bring to a boil.

  3. Place the saucepan in another pot of hot water.

  4. In a bowl, beat the eggs, celery salt, cayenne pepper, sugar, and mustard together. Add the vinegar or lemon juice to the egg mixture.

  5. Stir this mixture into the saucepan until it boils and thickens like soft custard, about five minutes.

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. Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sauce + mustardtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,120 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Sauce + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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 set into a soft custard when heated.
Butter
Adds richness and smooth mouthfeel to the dressing.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the eggs thicken into a creamy texture.
Vinegar or lemon juice
Adds acidity that gives the dressing its tangy flavour.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar or lemon with sweetness.

The step that matters

Stir the egg mixture into the saucepan gently over hot water. Egg proteins set at around boiling point and can scramble if overheated. Keeping the pan in hot water and stirring steadily lets the custard thicken smoothly rather than curdling.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sauce, mustard, sugar, milk, vinegar, egg. 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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