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Salad

Boiled Salad Dressing

A boiled dressing made with sugar, salt, mustard, vinegar, egg, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Boiled Salad Dressing

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 ↓

Boiled Salad Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Mix sugar, salt, and mustard together in a bowl.

  2. Boil the vinegar and pour it slowly over the beaten egg while stirring vigorously.

  3. Add the sugar, salt, and mustard mixture after wetting it with a little vinegar.

  4. Place the mixture on the stove and cook until it thickens, stirring constantly.

  5. Once cooled, stir in the rich 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. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg
Thickens the dressing as it cooks, giving it a smooth, body-rich texture.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the dressing's flavor and helps balance the sweetness.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Rich cream
Adds fat that softens the dressing and gives it a creamy mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Pour the boiling vinegar slowly over the egg while stirring vigorously. Pouring hot vinegar too quickly or without stirring can scramble the egg proteins into lumps instead of letting them blend smoothly. Slow pouring and constant stirring gently warm the egg so it thickens evenly.

Swap the mustard

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, vinegar, egg, cream. 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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