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Salad

Cooked Salad Dressing

A thickened dressing made from egg yolks, salt, sugar, mustard, butter, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Cooked Salad Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Beat the egg yolks thoroughly.

  2. Add salt, sugar, mustard, butter, and vinegar, and mix well.

Cook

  1. Place the mixture in a double boiler.

  2. Stir constantly until it thickens.

Finish

  1. Remove from heat.

  2. Let cool.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Sugar + mustardtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,424 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken as they heat, giving the dressing its body and structure.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother, rounder mouthfeel.
Vinegar
Provides the sharp acidity that gives the dressing its tang.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the acidity of the vinegar.

The step that matters

Stir constantly over the double boiler until it thickens. Egg yolks thicken gently at low, indirect heat, but they can scramble if they get too hot or sit still. Constant stirring spreads the heat evenly so the dressing thickens smoothly.

Swap the mustard

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, 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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