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Cream Salad Dressing

A creamy dressing made with flour, mustard, butter, egg yolks, cream, vinegar, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Cream Salad Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Mix the flour, mustard, salt, and sugar with the butter.

  2. Add the egg yolks and mix well.

  3. Stir in the cream and then the vinegar.

Cook and chill

  1. Cook over simmering water until thickened.

  2. Strain if necessary and chill before serving.

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

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

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

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

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + mustardtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,066 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Their proteins set when heated, thickening the dressing into a creamy emulsion.
Flour
Its starch swells with heat and helps thicken the dressing so it holds together.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, softening the dressing's texture.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and balances the richness.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that offsets the acidity and sharpness of the vinegar.

The step that matters

Cook over simmering water until thickened. Egg yolk proteins set at moderate heat and can curdle or scramble if overheated. Gentle, steady heat with constant stirring gives a smooth, thick dressing.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Shallotfits about as well
  2. Chivefits about as well
  3. Mustardthe original
  4. Leekfits about as well

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