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Salad

My 'own' Salad Dressing

A creamy dressing made from hard‑boiled egg yolks, olive oil, mustard, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Olive and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,950 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

My 'own' Salad Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the yolks

  1. Boil the eggs until hard, then place them in cold water until completely cool.

  2. Cut the eggs in half, remove the yolks, and rub them through a fine sieve with a wooden spoon.

Make the dressing

  1. Mix the yolks with the cream, olive oil, salt, sugar, mustard, and cayenne pepper.

  2. Gradually add the vinegar while stirring until the mixture is smooth.

Serve

  1. Pour the dressing down the side of the salad bowl and mix just before serving.

  2. Slice the egg whites for garnishing the top of the salad.

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. Olive + mustardtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Olive + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,263 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Sugar + malttop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together325 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Emulsify with the oil and vinegar, giving the dressing its thick, creamy body.
Olive oil
Provides fat that carries flavor and gives the dressing a smooth, rich mouthfeel.
Malt or wine vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the richness of yolk and oil.
Fresh cream
Adds moisture and richness, softening the texture of the dressing.
Prepared mustard
Contributes sharpness and helps stabilize the emulsion of oil and yolk.

The step that matters

Gradually add the vinegar while stirring. Adding vinegar slowly while stirring lets the yolk mixture absorb the liquid and keep a smooth emulsion; adding it all at once can cause the dressing to separate or turn thin.

Swap the mustard

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, cream, olive, sugar, pepper, malt. 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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