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Salad

Cooked Salad Dressing

A thickened salad dressing made by cooking egg yolks, oil, vinegar, and milk.

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 ↓

Cooked Salad Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. Beat the egg yolks lightly.

  2. Slowly add the oil while continuing to beat.

  3. Mix in the salt and dry mustard.

  4. Gradually add the vinegar.

  5. Stir in the sugar and gradually beat in the milk.

Cook and finish

  1. Cook over hot water until thick like cream.

  2. Finally, add a dash of cayenne.

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. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

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

  3. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Mustard + sugartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,424 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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
Emulsify the oil and thicken the dressing when gently heated.
Oil
Adds fat and richness, forming an emulsion with the yolks.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the richness.
Milk
Thins the mixture and adds moisture and a creamy body.

The step that matters

Cook over hot water until thick like cream. Egg yolks thicken as they heat, but overheating scrambles them into lumps. Gentle heat over hot water, rather than direct heat, keeps the dressing smooth and lets it thicken evenly.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardthe original
  3. Cucumberfits about as well
  4. Sweet potatofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, vinegar, sugar, milk. 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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