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Salad

Potato Salad Dressing

A creamy dressing made from egg yolks, vinegar, butter, mustard, salt, sugar, cayenne pepper, and cream.

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 ↓

Potato Salad Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a bowl, add the well-beaten yolks of five eggs to five tablespoons of boiling vinegar.

  2. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture thickens.

  3. Remove from heat.

  4. Add two tablespoons of butter, stirring until cool.

  5. Season with one teaspoon of mustard, one teaspoon of salt, one tablespoon of sugar, a pinch of cayenne pepper, and one cup of cream.

  6. If preferred, substitute oil for butter.

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

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

  4. Sugar + creamtop 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the dressing as they set during gentle cooking, giving it a creamy body.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor and balances the richness of the yolks and cream.
Butter
Adds fat that makes the dressing smoother and richer in texture.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, softening the sharpness of the vinegar.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the acidity of the vinegar.

The step that matters

Cook over low heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture thickens. Egg yolks thicken through gentle heat; if the heat is too high or stirring stops, the yolks can scramble into lumps instead of forming a smooth, thick dressing.

Swap the mustard

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

  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 egg, vinegar, butter, sugar, pepper, 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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