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Dessert

Cooked Salad Dressing

A cooked salad dressing made with egg yolks, mustard, sugar, vinegar, milk, oil, salt, cayenne pepper, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks, sugar, and mustard together.

  2. Add the vinegar, milk, oil, and salt, and mix well.

  3. Place the bowl in a dish of boiling water and stir until thickened.

  4. Fold in the beaten egg whites.

Store

  1. Store in the refrigerator for up to two weeks.

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

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

  3. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

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

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

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

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 as they cook gently over water.
Egg whites
Add lightness and body when beaten and folded into the cooked dressing.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that balances the sweetness and richness.
Milk
Adds moisture and mellows the tang, giving a creamier texture.
Oil
Adds fat for a smooth, rich mouthfeel.
Mustard
Adds pungent flavour and helps stabilise the emulsion.

The step that matters

Stir over boiling water until thickened. Egg yolks thicken as their proteins set with gentle heat. If the heat is too high or stirring stops, the yolks can scramble and curdle, leaving a grainy dressing instead of a smooth one.

Swap the mustard

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

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

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