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Salad

Simple Salad Dressing

A warm or chilled dressing made with butter, cream, vinegar, sugar, eggs, salt, pepper, and mustard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Vinegar and mustard 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 ↓

Simple Salad Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. In a small pan, melt the butter and cream over medium heat until boiling.

  2. Add the vinegar, sugar, salt, pepper, and mustard; let it boil.

  3. Beat the eggs until frothy, then gradually pour in the hot mixture, stirring constantly.

  4. Cook until the dressing thickens.

Serve

  1. Serve warm for cabbage or chill for other salads.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  4. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  5. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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 when gently heated, giving it body.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and balances the richness of butter and cream.
Butter
Adds fat for a smooth, rich mouthfeel.
Cream
Adds fat and moisture for a silky, creamy texture.
Mustard
Adds sharp flavour and helps emulsify the dressing.

The step that matters

Pour the hot mixture into the eggs gradually while stirring constantly. Adding hot liquid too quickly to beaten eggs can scramble them. Pouring slowly while stirring gently raises their temperature so they thicken smoothly.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Mustardthe original
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Potatofits about as well

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