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Salad

Salad Dressing

A creamy vinaigrette made with egg yolks, mustard, lemon, vinegar, butter, sugar, spices, and optional whipped cream and oil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Salad Dressing

Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Salad Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Beat the egg yolks until light.

  2. Add mustard, salt, melted butter, lemon juice, and vinegar slowly while stirring.

  3. Mix in sugar, red pepper, and paprika.

  4. Cook slowly in a double boiler, stirring constantly until smooth.

  5. Before serving, fold in whipped cream and add oil if desired.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Emulsify and thicken the dressing as they cook, giving it a smooth, rich body.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the dressing a smooth, creamy mouthfeel.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the richness of the yolks and butter.
Mustard
Helps stabilize the emulsion and adds sharp flavor.
Whipped cream
Lightens the dressing and adds softness and volume when folded in.

The step that matters

Cook slowly in a double boiler, stirring constantly until smooth. Egg yolks thicken from gentle heat, but too much heat scrambles them into lumps. Slow, constant stirring over indirect heat keeps the mixture smooth and creamy.

Swap the mustard

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, lemon, 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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